AIBU to expect my asymptomatic children be set work whilst missing school

[Gienovere]

So covid has gone through our house, taking out each of us one by one. It seems to have come in from one child at high school. Then each double vaccinated adult and finally to my youngest.
So each dd had 9 days off school, but neither school set any work. One primary and one secondary and no contact from either school, despite me requesting at least an idea of the topics being covered in school.
So am I being unreasonable to think if a child with no symptoms is expected to miss almost two weeks of school, to protect others, they should at least be able to access education online?

My kids' school runs online classes for kids who are isolating. I'd be very unimpressed if they were to just miss 2 weeks of school for no reason. My dd's year group was taught online by a teacher who was herself self-isolating. Win - win

I'm a primary teacher, currently self isolating with covid. There is an expectation - from the Govt I presume, if I had the energy I'd find out where it says it - that children self isolating should be able to access relevant work. In our school we are set up to revert to distance learning for when we need to. Those children in my class who are off school self isolating (there are several) have been provided with work every day. Now that I'm feeling a bit better, I'm doing that for them myself.

Children should have access, but teachers are still trying to look after 30+ kids so I would also look into something you could set up in the meantime, whenever it's educational websites or getting them to read more.

Yesterday I was taken for cover again this week. But this time I was already teaching. So my class were sent to the hall, I covered another class, I lost all my frees this week, and have to set work for anyone at home too. There is not enough staff in school to set one lot of work, let alone two. I think we all have to be patient.

@Notdoingthis is spot on. Staff are under loads of pressure. Yes students are supposed to be set work but it's the 8th week of half term. They're short staffed and most of the kids won't do it anyway.

When and who should be setting this work if the teacher is already doing their full time job with those in school?
Most teachers are already working well beyond their contracted hours in school and you think they should be doing more?

School should have a back up plan. You can always give your children extension work too, so if they’re learning about the great fire of London, for example, watch some children’s shows about it on YouTube, get them to do a project, make a collage of the fire etc. Get some basic maths and English books from The Works for their ages and let them work through a few pages each day. It’s not ideal but I’d rather do that than rely on school, who may not provide anything.

They just log on and join the lesson on Teams at my daughters school. There’s always a few on there apparently.

Our school is running parallel classes for those at home.

I said this to my DD's teacher last night. She's had a week, two days, and a random day off since term either at home or being sent home from school and each time I asked for work to be sent home. She's well enough do to at home.

He said that it's not so much the work, it's the teaching that they miss out on so if work gets sent home and they complete, no point of the teaching method isn't applied to it

Kind of made sense

*there's no point if the teaching method isn't applied to it

Hope that makes sense. They want them to be taught in their own standard way for certain things or else if they miss out on that that they struggle to understand the next lesson or topic

Our secondary has online stuff for those not in school, its on teams for them to access when needed. Its completely acceptable for you to expect access to work if the children are well enough to do work at home.

@Foolsrule

School should have a back up plan. You can always give your children extension work too, so if they’re learning about the great fire of London, for example, watch some children’s shows about it on YouTube, get them to do a project, make a collage of the fire etc. Get some basic maths and English books from The Works for their ages and let them work through a few pages each day. It’s not ideal but I’d rather do that than rely on school, who may not provide anything.

All I asked was to be given an idea of the topics they might be covering so I could do similar at home. I wasn’t even told this. Of course I didn’t let either of them spend two weeks doing nothing, I set them work. It would’ve just been nice to have had some idea of what they were missing.

My kids primary have work set for each term for those isolating to do, its on the schools website. We don't get live teaching from them.

The school I teach in which is secondary, I set a task for isolating students on teams for them. Depending on the info I get and when it might be at the end of the day of their lesson, or before - I don't find out they are isolating if it is a new student until the lesson due to our register system - can't open the register until the lesson!

However, I have had students email me to chase!

I think it's fair enough OP to expect that teachers will post any worksheets on Teams (or whichever portal the school used for online schooling), for those isolating at home. When my DS was awaiting PCR test results his (secondary) teachers did this or listed the relevant pages of the text book for what they were covering that lesson. Some teachers are even having the camera on while they teach lessons so those at home can watch remotely.

Dd didn't get much when she was off week 2 but they were only just getting into yr7, and I dont school were quite prepared for the MASSIVE spike in cases in yr 7, she was set some though when I asked and it was enough as she wasn't well. By the next week when 25% of the year was off, school was on it and the children off that week struggled to complete it there was so much !

Is it not all on line too as a matter of course these days? My Dd can access a decent amount of class work on Google classroom any time she’s off (she’s got some chronic health conditions)

Our school is no longer providing work for those at home with covid, we can barely cover all the classes at school.

I’m sure you could ask your kids what topics they are doing and find them something, or ask a friend to drop some by

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Is it not all on line too as a matter of course these days? My Dd can access a decent amount of class work on Google classroom any time she’s off (she’s got some chronic health conditions)

At lot will depend on the school, the one I work in is not IT rich as such, so our desktops we use in class don't even have microphones/cameras. We have laptops with these but they are not linked to our projectors! IT nightmare.

If a whole class is off it is easier.

I don't as standard add my lessons to Teams - one reason, some lessons I don't prepare a powerpoint and teach just using a whiteboard and pen!

We just set up teams calls and the isolating kids join online. It’s not really more work: very quick to set up and you just have to remember to join the call and either put laptop where the camera can see you or share your screen, depending what you’re doing.

Same as @Lucia574. I'm not in the UK but still a full time primary teacher. If kids are off with covid or as close contacts we just have a meeting on Teams/Zoom and teach as normal so they are one for the regular school day unless they are too sick obviously. It's no more work for us. My main computer is not great with the WiFi and freezes a lot so usually join the call on my laptop/iPad and point it at the board that I'm teaching from. It's not great that after all this time basic procedures haven't been put in place for kids who can't be at school.

*online not one

@Lucia574

We just set up teams calls and the isolating kids join online. It’s not really more work: very quick to set up and you just have to remember to join the call and either put laptop where the camera can see you or share your screen, depending what you’re doing.

I did this last year. I don't know why it was considered such a big deal. This year it's more difficult because it isn't our approach so separate remote work has to be set. In reality though, that means generic work us being set by our curriculum leader.

I doubt very much my DCs would get anything at all.

We offer online learning for those at home ,If they have the tech they can join the input via teams and then teachers post the lesson there too as we did when school was closed.
Otherwise we send home via email screen shots of maths pages etc

I’m a primary teacher and for various reasons we don’t live stream our day - namely confidentiality and privacy for the children and things they say etc.

Then I’m working 8-7ish sorting everything out for the lessons that I’m teaching in school, marking, meetings etc. I try to then set worksheets online for those that are isolating but often it’s harder than just “putting the worksheet from the day on” because we don’t teach worksheet heavy lessons, they often tasks that are linked to the teaching input and lots of whiteboard practice etc. So I basically have to source a whole new set of worksheets that are appropriate for parents to do with their children without any teacher input.

It’s a jeffing nightmare and schools do not have capacity to outsource this to anyone else, especially with current staff absence levels, so it’s a couple of hours added to a day that is already absolutely full. I’m basically doing it after my dinner at night before I go to bed.

I know children shouldn’t be missing education but honestly we all need to cut each other a little slack currently.

In the meantime, go to the Oak Academy website and download anything for your child’s year group as it’s all pretty good stuff. Or sign up for Twinkl and do the same. That’s what I’d do with my DD instead of expecting her already very stretched teacher to set work.