If you're a teacher, how do the kids seem at the moment?

[JesusInTheCabbageVan]

In light of all the reports of children's mental health and development suffering during lockdown, I've been wondering about this a lot. Have you noticed a big change in the kids you teach? Was it as bad as you feared?

My DS9 seems to have come through it all more or less OK, though according to him he's currently getting told off a lot 'for no reason' so reading between the lines, he's being a bit of a PITA. Hopefully it'll settle down.

I know this sounds like a very 'journalist' post... all I can say is I promise I'm not! Been around for years and would make a crap journalist.

Reading this is so sad.

A huge thank you to all working in schools, for the care you take of our children.

Bungle Ah, ok. I misunderstood. I think then the answer will vary from school to school. Ours haven’t lost learning on the whole, as we had a near enough 100% take up with online learning.
But that might not be true in many schools. Our children pretty much all had someone at home who could help so they weren’t left to do it alone. Not everyone had that - people trying to work themselves might not have been able to support their children.

Bear in mind, that we don’t expect the kids to learn over the summer holidays, and some allowance for ‘slippage’ is made. This time, we are comparing the children to where they should be if they were in school as normal. We are expecting them to have been learning. So a child coming into year 1 after the summer, we expect some of them not have picked up a pencil and have forgotten how to hold it properly. We just don’t expect to be doing that again with a year 1 child in March. And our child who hasn’t engaged in online learning isn’t holding her pencil properly, so we are having to correct her grip and help her with letter formation. This is expected in September but not now, with only one term left in Year 1. Does that make sense?

@BungleandGeorge

I get that’s it’s not the same as a summer holiday I just don’t understand why some are saying all the kids have taken a big step backwards in terms of learning when they’ve all been learning online every day. First week back ok but my kids are back into routine, not tired or emotional or any different now really, I appreciate it’s probably more difficult for younger ones.

I agree that younger children with working parents have suffered so much. Older more independent children could work alongside a parent. At a cluster meeting with other schools they were all saying the same. Year 1 in particular.

DD (y6) is pleased to be back and see her friends in person again, she’s still tired as she got used to going to bed later but overall is OK. I really feel for those who are finding it more difficult. Thank you so much to the teachers, TAs and other school staff who are doing as much as they can to mitigate the effects of over a years disruption. I hope things get back on an even keel later in the year, but fear it will end up being a much longer process.

@BungleandGeorge

I get that’s it’s not the same as a summer holiday I just don’t understand why some are saying all the kids have taken a big step backwards in terms of learning when they’ve all been learning online every day. First week back ok but my kids are back into routine, not tired or emotional or any different now really, I appreciate it’s probably more difficult for younger ones.

Because all children are not the same. They don’t have equal opportunities, home lives, support networks. Some live in overcrowded or noisy households, some live with parents who don’t /can’t support them with their work etc. Doesn’t take much imagination to work out why some children haven’t coped with online learning.

You would not believe how many households have little or no routine.

@babybythesea

One of the other interesting effects is in our nursery (so 3 and 4 year olds). Bear in mind that for quarter or a third of their life we have been in lockdown, so they don’t really remember pre-lockdown. One of them got the till out to play shops, and the other six kids (tiny village school) had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Couldn’t role play it because they haven’t been in a shop that they remember. Made me really appreciative that there will be experiences that we used to take for granted that kids will have, like going into a shop and using money, that they just don’t have at the moment.

Wow. Sometimes it's the little things that get you.

As a family we've obviously been ploughing through a fair bit of TV in lockdown. In retrospect, that's probably a better thing than I realised, because DS (and all of us for that matter) have had that exposure to people acting normally, being in crowds, hugging etc. That's what I'm going to start telling myself, anyway; it's enriching.

I do recall having to coax DS into Taco Bell to choose his lunch a few weeks ago, because he was sure he'd get shouted at.

@BungleandGeorge because they haven't all been learning online throughout, for various reasons.

They don’t have equal opportunities, home lives, support networks. Some live in overcrowded or noisy households, some live with parents who don’t /can’t support them with their work etc.
Doesn’t take much imagination to work out why some children haven’t coped with online learning.

I have a Y11 chlld she knows many who had prolonged access issues to school systems and teaching. When that happened to my children we advocated for them and found the School IT support service extremely difficult and unnessarily unhelpful and frankly uninterested in sorting anything if possible. We have strong IT backgrounds and confidence to make a fuss so got things moving.

Many of these 15/16 had families who left it to them to sort and they got messed around and behind for weeks until the teaching staff finally got them school places. Many are still trying to catch up - and that's Y11 with limted time before prolonged intensive assesment periods coming up.

There's so many ways children could get disadvanatged by home learning.

@exLtEveDallas Can I ask, what's the approach with school refusers?

@Walkaround the last couple of sentences sum it up. I don’t doubt the issues. But as a parent of a child who loves playing football but can’t at school because the local authority sold of the school land so now there is not the space it really irritates me that kids are losing out on physical activities. A blanket ban on football is not the solution. Just think of how sad that is? Boys and girls have been playing football in the playground for years.

Boys have been playing football on the playground for years while girls get shoved to the side, usually.

My kid's primary has sectioned off bits of the playground to separate bubbles so each bubble has a much smaller space. No way could they fit football in.

@Whenthesunshines
No need for the snide remarks, if you read my post it says
just don’t understand why some are saying all the kids have taken a big step backwards in terms of learning

The word ALL is the important word that you’ve overlooked

@babybythesea
Thanks for the explanation, I understand what you’re saying and that you’re comparing different time points in the year. I’m aware that many kids won’t be totally up to speed in many ways but it was just a bit concerning to have so many posts saying that all the children have regressed so significantly.

I don't think there were any snide comments. Your question was simplistic and tone deaf.

[quote Plates]@Fembot123

Ahh so the pastoral staff like me who have been in the whole time and are now dealing with the worst effects of the lockdown as we are behaviour focused don’t have anything relevant to say, ok.

What do you mean? Aren't pastoral staff teachers and TAs?[/quote]
No, I am neither a teacher or a TA and neither are the other pastoral people.

[quote BungleandGeorge]@Whenthesunshines
No need for the snide remarks, if you read my post it says
just don’t understand why some are saying all the kids have taken a big step backwards in terms of learning

The word ALL is the important word that you’ve overlooked[/quote]
What snide remarks?

We had a lovely boy in over lockdown, polite and hardworking but he is the eldest of 7 so didn’t have the space or the peace to work at all at home but others in similar boats just refused to come in.

[quote OhDear2200]@Walkaround the last couple of sentences sum it up. I don’t doubt the issues. But as a parent of a child who loves playing football but can’t at school because the local authority sold of the school land so now there is not the space it really irritates me that kids are losing out on physical activities. A blanket ban on football is not the solution. Just think of how sad that is? Boys and girls have been playing football in the playground for years.[/quote]
@OhDear2200 - to be fair, many girls and boys who do not like football have been complaining about children taking over the entire playground to play football for years. I agree that insufficient playground space is a scandal and a major cause of the issues - as is the pay of people expected to supervise the chaos caused by overexcited children trying to move around in extremely limited space. Even from quite a young age, children do not respect the discipline of a playground supervisor in the way they would a teacher. Many parents are now also far more risk averse for their children than was the case in the past, and likely to complain if the result of letting football take place in the playground is occasional torn clothes (modern trousers seem to rip at the knees phenomenally easily), physical fights, and injuries! The keen footballers do not seem to realise or care how disruptive it is for children who do not want to take part, or children who do want to take part but lack ability and therefore feel bullied and excluded by the good footballers who don’t really want them to ruin their game. It’s not really fair on children who want a bit of space for skipping games, hopscotch, netball, or just to play “It” without the risk of being knocked out of the way by a group of over-excited footballers. So, football should be accommodated in moderation, but not allowed to take over.

@FurrySlipperBoots
Hi, we have kept in touch with the parents and offered support. We aren’t logging unauthorised absence until after Easter.

If parents have requested support to get the children back in teachers and pastoral have visited the children at home, have chatted in gardens and tried to get to the bottom of the refusal.

We have allowed part-time timetables and have offered incentives (one child came back in this week solely to work in the school gardens!)

We are sending out work and pointing out that if they were in school they would be getting less!

We have a weekly award (monetary, family based) for those who are pushing themselves and spending some time working on the adults too.

We’ve gone all out this side of the term, but after Easter things will have to change, we are great, but cannot do this endlessly.

We had a Zoom Parents evening last night, DD is 8, the same handwriting needs a lot of work, but she was stretched and had to write two long stories, which was painful but also an achievement under the circumstances, maths as well trying to teach her the way I was taught, I was learning more than she was!! This is is where relying Math shed and Spelling shed, they are not having to work it out in their heads! But saying that I struggled and used to use a calculator!! Reading seemed to be not a problem as she is reading subtitles and off the screen!! My DS is 12 and not happy getting to school but once there he seems quite chilled when he gets home!! I am not a Teacher, but if there is a shortage I am happy to volunteer...

My son is Y1 and was raring to go back to school. What he’s found is a few of the other boys in his class have seemingly forgotten how to play nicely or even just be nice. We have had to bring this up with the school and it seems, from what they say, it’s across the years and they will be addressing how to, basically, re-socialise the little darlings.

In my 9-year-old's school, in the first days after return, the kids seemed to have forgotten how to move around and navigate their space when surrounded by other kids. Six kids ended up in the nurses' office on tge first day back, not because of covid: hands having been stepped on, kids bumping into each other and hurting each other's heads, and several mild head injurues from being hit by a ball. It's subsiding now thankfully.

I’m a TA & two Yr3 girls were sat on the floor holding the doors for others. As the rest of the class filed through, they were having a chat & a giggle. I let them sit there for a couple of minutes, just chatting. It was lovely to see. I apologised to them when I told them it was time to go back to class.
I agree with previous posts that those who were in are finding it harder now everybody’s back. Just goes to show that classes are too big at 30.

We have found that our school children have found it harder coming back from this lockdown compared to returning in September. It may be because they had to do being at home all over again or because they've returned half way through a term.
We've very much gone at the children's pace and taken it slowly and focused on their well-being. We're hopeful that after the Easter holidays, things will feel more normal for them.