Only 3 live lessons pw Y11

[Timtims]

Plus Y8 DC only had 2 this week (none at all March 20 - Dec 20).

So many friends who have DCs in other schools have almost a whole timetable of live lessons.

Seems so unequal and unfair. How is a child who has had about 20 live lessons since March 20, supposed to 'compete/compare' with a child who has 20 hours per week. At GCSE!!!

No joy with speaking to school about it. They just say they are doing their best.

AIBU to think my DCs are being massively disadvantaged and let down.

(apologies if this topic has already been discussed 1000 times).

I think you’re imagining that live lessons are much better than they really are! There's definitely an element of this in some parents. I did 2 live lessons today, both for sixth form. One was an optional drop in where they could come and get some help with the work I'd set (via video, they'd had 40 minutes of teacher input this week, as well as a textbook exercise to complete). None of them came. Not even the one who asked for live lessons yesterday. I did my bit, sitting like a numpty all in my own for an hour.
The other one had 16 pupils in. Only one of them spoke to me at all, and that was only because I specifically said "I can't see the chat window while I'm presenting the PowerPoint, please can someone talk to me and let me know you can see the PowerPoint". The rest of them came, listened quietly to what I was saying, didn't say a word, but they did vote on the multiple choice questions via chat. Then they went away to do independent work. I'm not sure how that was in any way better than me prerecording the explanation so they can access it at a time more convenient to them. I certainly have no more idea of what they understood than I would if I just sent my video out. They send me a scan of their work whether it was a video lesson or a live lesson, so I'm getting exactly the same information from them. Possible less, as they are more inclined to email me with problems and questions than they are to ask a question in chat where everyone can see.

Damaging for my DCs life chances

Even though you've seen the Ofsted document upthread which calls this idea an unhelpful myth without any evidence?

You have every lesson you can want available online at Oak Academy. Get your child on there and help them plan a timetable for the week. Teaching them independent study skills is incredibly valuable.

Secondary teacher - I generally do 1-2 live lesson per class per week. Other lessons are a pre-recorded lesson, or slides or videos or workbooks or whatever.

The pupils generally prefer a pre-recorded lesson or slides + videos - Why? Because they can re-watch or review it and because they can't always be on or participate in a live lesson due to stuff at home (parent working, younger siblings, general household noise, shitty wifi)

Sometimes live lessons can sometimes be great but 90% of the time its like talking into a vacuum, kids don't have cameras on, no one is willing to talk. It's a long way from the interactivity in a classroom and there's no rewind button.

I think you need to complain. I teach in a secondary school and all year groups have a full timetable of live lessons plus they are doing assessments on Microsoft forms which we are marking so they are getting regular feedback. It looks as though students in year 11 will be sitting some form of internal exams so they need to have finished the course content.

It’s appalling. But it’s hard to complain to the school to effectively ask wtf are the teachers doing when they will likely be the ones issuing gcse grades to your kid.

@donquixotedelamancha

Damaging for my DCs life chances

Even though you've seen the Ofsted document upthread which calls this idea an unhelpful myth without any evidence?

You have every lesson you can want available online at Oak Academy. Get your child on there and help them plan a timetable for the week. Teaching them independent study skills is incredibly valuable.

Oak academy is useless for year 11. My DCs school are providing good education without using it for years 10 and 11. I don't think they have used it for any year group

As for the ofsted claims, they have no idea, we've not been in this situation before and they have no evidence either way.

Seriously? How many families with parents working at home have enough devices for live lessons?
That's why my school is doing a mixture of live lessons, online remote learning and independent paper work booklets.

The first thing you realise on MN is that there are a lot of privileged people who can't (or won't) see that for many families there's simply not enough devices for 2-3 children to follow 5 hours of live lessons and the parent to work from home.

There's no evidence that live is best. I actually know some schools that have reduced their live lessons because the students were exhausted after 5 hours at a screen and it wasn't as effective as a lesson, then offline independent application time.
I look at all my friends (non teachers) who are saying they are finding several teams meetings a day to be draining, can't focus and so on. I've seen zoom fatigue being discussed online too. 13 year olds, however, are apparently immune to this and should be sat at their screen for the whole day. 🤷‍♀️

I think most schools are doing more than that but there may be reasons in your school's case. You need to speak to management. Individual teachers are not the ones deciding on how lessons will be delivered, generally. I work for a private school and we have been teaching live on and off since March - we were given some options to help colleagues with young kids at home or dodgy WiFi - but everything has been communicated to parents with reasons for the decisions (parental input has also been sought). This time round all lessons are live but can be audio only. We don't just talk at them for an hour though! We've divided our lessons into 10 min chunks and often students are working independently and we're available on chat. They have to put their cameras on if we ask. There is the odd bit of talking into the void, but generally good response on chat. Most problems involve WiFi or Teams misbehaving.

We have also just reduced all the lessons by a few mins so kids can get outdoors at lunch.

Our parents pay fees though so we take their views seriously! We have to. And they all have devices.

If you get no joy from the head/deputy/head of year, order CGP workbooks for all the relevant subjects and encourage DC to work through. I had mostly rubbish teaching in the 1980s and that's what I did. The independent study skills I gained set me up for life.

Most problems involve WiFi or Teams misbehaving.
I lose at least 10 minutes every lesson due to Teams misbehaving at the moment. Our students have issues too.
I don't think it was designed to run a country's education system.

I'd be much happier uploading prerecorded lessons for students to follow and then me sign in and be on the live chat. It would be much smoother and I'm sure our students would get more from it.

My year 11 is now still getting most of his timetable in live lessons. He had virtually none March- July and much much prefers the live lessons. Worksheets and tidying his file wore thin very quickly. Finds online work far easier to engage with, and although not perfect, is more motivating and productive.

Agree with the concern about disparity in provision though and year 11's should be an absolute priority now. The vast majority of 15 and 16 year olds will be fine at a screen.

Our school is providing a bit of a mixture that seems to work well, and much better than lockdown 1.
However generally my children think prerecorded teacher videos with a set task is best. Remote learning is never going to be be comparable to real school though.

Oak academy is useless for year 11....As for the ofsted claims, they have no idea

Well there is me thinking that Ofsted and I (an experienced teacher) might have some relevant expertise- don't I feel a fool.

Thanks for correcting me. Have you told Ofsted they are wrong yet?

Do you know how many live lessons my DC have (y11 and y8).. they have none. Not one. Their school is shocking I could cry at the shit level of education they’ve both had since last March. Lessons consist of a bunch of oak academy links. My ds gets on ok with this, but for whatever reason my dd (y11) can’t engage with OA and there is literally nothing else for her. I believe some parents complained to ofsted. I don’t know if they will change anything, I fear it’s too late now for DD.

TwoleftUggs
There's no evidence that live lessons are better. The obsession with live lessons has come from parents, well-equipped private schools with affluent parents,and a former politician (Lord Adonis I think) who has links to edu-tech platforms.

The point of Oak Academy is that they are resources created by strong teachers specifically to use during lockdown, so complaining that schools are using a platform that has been created for remote learning is unreasonable.

However, if you're concerned about your child's education then speak to the school directly, and ask what their policy is for remote learning, assessing progress and tracking progress. They should have one and should be able to explain to you their provision. If they can't then I would advise complaining about the provision from the perspective that their curriculum provision is poor, not that you think your DC should have live lessons.

Some schools aren't doing enough, but I think it's really important to differentiate between poor provision and provision that isn't what parents think it should be (eg complaining if teachers have used Twinkl, complaining that links to YouTube explanations are set, complaining that Oak Academy materials are used and anything else that translates to 'I think my DC's teachers should reinvent the wheel so I know they are working', or why parent thinks their DC should have a live timetable)

Local school was doing lots of live lessons but stopped as it found that they weren't helping at parents complained about them.

Live lessons require each child in the house hold to have their own device, Internet strong enough for multiple people to be doing video calls at the same time (my decent WiFi struggled with 2 of us using teams at the same time), quiet work spaces and for schedules to align.

The preference here was very much for pre recorded where it can be rewound if there is connectivity issues and fit around the house hold. You can also download it so connection tends to be better than live streaming
My experience of live lessons was mostly people talking about muting mics, I can't hear you, press x button rather than much content!

It always surprises me that there's such a push to live lessons on here, when I've only ever heard people complain about it!

It may be that many of the students can't access live lessons. Our school did a survey about what equipment people have and because the overwhelming majority of pupils have access to their own device, printer and workspace, the school is delivering live lessons for almost every lesson. This wouldn't work if less than half the class was there, though. Schools have to tailor their offering to be accessible to the highest possible number of their students.

@BlusteryLake

Very similar here. Local parents and students were asking for non live learning.

I'm sure live learning benefits some pupils, but seems to massively disadvantage others.

I wouldn’t be happy with that either OP.

DD year 11’s school were dreadful in the first lockdown but seem a bit better this time but far from ideal.

To access work kids have to check classcharts, school email address and office 365.

Sometimes the code to get into a lesson is only given out 2 minutes beforehand, isn’t given out at all, some teachers do a 10 minute recorded powerpoint, some do 20 minute live lesson, other lessons last well over an hour and others just don’t happen. Other teachers dole out a big batch of homework at 7pm at night.

Surely if they kept to a timetable it would be better for all kids. The teachers seem to be a law unto themselves.

I would speak to the school OP.

I'm a secondary teacher and we are doing - recorded ppts for all lessons (we share planning so one teacher will do two weeks' worth for 1 year group) Live lessons for years 9-13 (all live for 10-13 and about 2/3 live for year 9) Mixture of live and recorded for 7 and 8 depending on topic.

The recordings are always available as some cannot access live or don't like it.

@Bobbybobbins whilst sharing the planning must make life so much easier for teachers. It really doesn’t work for all.

DD year 11 is dyslexic and she gets frustrated that some things get missed, some things get taught twice, she gets annoyed because she doesn’t know the teacher and then she gets emails from her form tutor, head of year, her own teacher in every subject and also the teachers setting the work so she feels bombarded with emails. All the teachers at her school seem to be setting the work differently (some do live lessons at the usual time and some do short powerpoints which she hates). They all seem to use different platforms to set the work. Some use the dedicated usual home work platform (which is the only platform parents can view and have access to) as well as school email address, office. 365, TEAMS and subject specific platforms its shambolic.

DS is year 12 at GS his teachers follow the school timetable and teach almost every lesson live at the usual timetable this is far easier and works so much better.

What I've never understood is the completely different safeguarding measures different schools adopt, even similar schools within the same education authority (not academies). Some schools won't let children do live lessons at all. This obviously isn't a choice made by individual teachers.

That sounds poor to me. I’m teaching a normal timetable with slightly shortened lessons to allow breaks from screens. My students participate as they would in the classroom. I’m not sure about the concept of it being embarrassing as the people in the call are their peers/friends. Teams allows for calls to be recorded so anyone who misses a lesson or wants to go over it again can catch up in their own time. It also allows for the use of OneNote which syncs and acts as an exercise book so all work can be reviewed in real time. It’s really not that hard. I would find recording lessons etc in advance harder work than simply teaching the lessons I already have planned live.

Our parents have overwhelmingly asked for pre-recorded lessons and resources that they can do on their own. every class is getting 1 live lesson a week per teacher (science, so often 2 or 3 teachers) and barely any student attends; the worst being Year 10 at around 20%. I never see anymore than 50% of any of my 6th form classes.

You also need to consider that even having a device isn't the issue, it is connection. My house can't cope with me, DP who is a teacher and our 2 teenagers being in live lessons all at once; I doubt many houses can.

Subject-wise actual teaching live is a nightmare; I can't use new terminology or can only manage around half of a lessons worth of material as students drop in and out, experience glitches and lag so I have to repeat myeslf multiple times.

Just to clarify, our school aren't doing pre recorded lessons either. I think my y8 DC has had one.

Other than a couple of live lessons, it's worksheets and quizzes only.

I'm not suggesting live lessons are a panacea, but surely there must be some inequality between DCs who are expected to attend live lessons throughout the day, including logging on first thing, and DCs who get a selection of worksheets each day.

Im not asking for 5 hours a day and an assembly. But one maths live lesson and one science live lesson pw doesn't seem enough.

I’m a teacher (secondary state school)

In my school pupils have their normal timetable of live lessons - 5 a day. Each live lesson is around 20 ish mins at the start of explanation and instruction, then they have the rest of the lesson to get on with tasks set. We stay live so they can ask questions as they need to.

Each lesson is recorded and stored on teams so those sharing devices could watch later if needed.

I think it’s working quite well for us so far.

We use either team meetings or team live events. Pupils have cameras off but can interact either through chat function or through their microphones. Teachers decide if they want their own camera on or off. No pressure either way.

I’m lucky to work in a wonderful supportive school where we are constantly monitoring what is working, trying our best to get it right and accepting we don’t always. Parents are very supportive also.

It’s a big learning curve for everyone. Some people are trying to teach from home whilst also trying to home school their own children (just because they are able to send their children to school doesn’t mean they always want to).