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AIBU?

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Original poster

Covid primary schooling and virtual lessons

185 replies

Merryoldgoat · 09/02/2023 21:29

I’ll try to be brief - I’ve been speaking to a friend from a different area who I’ve not had a proper catch up with in about 2 years.

She said during the school closures her primary aged children (Y3&Y4 at the start) had virtual lessons every school day.

Not for the full school day but about 2-3 hours depending on the lesson.

Normal state school in a mixed area.

Was this normal? We didn’t have a single online lesson.

YABU - my kid’s school had regular virtual lessons

YANBU - no virtual lessons at my kid’s school.

OP posts:
LongLostTeacher · 09/02/2023 23:12

My child returned to school speaking like David Attenborough with the historical knowledge of Lucy Worsley and the mannerisms of Brian Cox.

Love this!

Original poster
Merryoldgoat · 09/02/2023 23:14

@teacher45646

are you fucking kidding? I’m a Labour Party member!

A Tory because I’m happy with a specialist provision for my autistic child? Wtaf?

I know it’s shit for most but it wasn’t for me - that’s all I’m saying!

OP posts:
Original poster
Merryoldgoat · 09/02/2023 23:15

My child returned to school speaking like David Attenborough with the historical knowledge of Lucy Worsley and the mannerisms of Brian Cox.

That is brilliant 🤩

OP posts:
Botw1 · 09/02/2023 23:16

Who knew there was a statute of limitations on being pissed off that the education system failed your children

Original poster
Merryoldgoat · 09/02/2023 23:17

@LongLostTeacher

That sounds brilliant - you must’ve been absolutely exhausted.

OP posts:
HereComesMaleficent · 09/02/2023 23:24

LongLostTeacher · 09/02/2023 23:12

My child returned to school speaking like David Attenborough with the historical knowledge of Lucy Worsley and the mannerisms of Brian Cox.

Love this!

I'm not even joking, 2 years have passed and he still begins sentences with "here we have..(enter whatever he is trying to describe) 🤣

He's also got a great talent for descriptive speech. Thank you Sir Attenborough, the absolute legend that he is! Haha.

Sunshinealwaysfollowstherainstorm · 09/02/2023 23:27

Our dc primary school was amazing.
They had full days lessons planned for each day. Some days had chill out times penned in, so children could do an activity of their choice with their family and then the children told each other what they did on their next class meeting.
Each day started with a class teams assembly and teacher gave first lesson together like in a classroom. All children loved being able to see, speak to and participate fully in the lesson together. Then they were told the lessons for the day for independent work offline and all the work was uploaded for them to answer in the exercise books they were given when it looked likely that schools would be shutting, a quick recap from the previous days lessons and an afternoon zoom lesson and class activities. At the end of each day, she let them take turns to say their own things.
They even managed to do sports day at home with the photos uploaded for each task earning points for each house group.
Children on free school meals were issued tablets with data included, as well as children whose parents were working from home and were unable to share equipment. The teacher drove round to each house to drop off the class novel at the doorstep and see the child and see how they were doing. Certificates were sent out in the post. We ended up with a folder of work from lockdown, which were marked by the teacher and awards were given to all pupils for outstanding resilience during difficult times. The books and folders have been given back to the children to keep, as well as their lockdown journals to document what they did and how they felt.
The school set up email addresses for the class teacher which they have kept ever since, so parents can communicate with the teacher with anything. They are very quick at responding.

I think we were very lucky to have the staff that we did at the time. We appreciate all the effort they put in to try and give the children their education in very difficult times.

Silentmama · 09/02/2023 23:27

Not during the 'first part' of lockdown - it was a shock there was no prep - pretty quick we were given a netbook for ds to use (he was year 5) - he had to log in at 9am - to get 'instructions for the day' and back in at about 2.45pm to 'show his work' - the teacher got people to explain answers - to - demonstrate stuff

the work was not as 'high level' as if he'd been - but certainly kept him ticking over

DD had some online learning every day - but some time off - as students found online provision intense (she was secondary)

MistressIggi · 09/02/2023 23:34

Botw1 · 09/02/2023 23:16

Who knew there was a statute of limitations on being pissed off that the education system failed your children

I'm sure you're right, I know I will not be forgetting the contempt shown to teachers on this site for a very, very long time (just as well I do my job for the children, not for the parents).
I don't think it's ok to just make shit up; like a fictitious third school lock down.

Botw1 · 09/02/2023 23:39

No, I won't forget the contempt I saw from some teachers and their unions for children and parents either.

MistressIggi · 09/02/2023 23:42

You crack ok with that. Two sides to every story.

BlackFriday · 09/02/2023 23:43

What, the unions who were trying to get the government to make schools safe to remain open? For the members, yes, and by extension the children.

Botw1 · 09/02/2023 23:46

What an odd rewriting of events

BlackFriday · 09/02/2023 23:47

Not odd at all.

DixonD · 09/02/2023 23:47

Mine was in year R at the time and had about 2 virtual lessons a day, as well as all the online learning they were given.

deplorabelle · 09/02/2023 23:52

Primary (state) was really shit. Parents were emailed a list of work which was all "do a project on X" "write a story on Y" type of FO&FO tasks that could have been dreamt up in well under half an hour. Then radio silence for three weeks and very minimal sending out of worksheets thereafter. I happen to know only SMT were in more often than once a week so class teachers not exactly rushed off their feet. The TAs gave the kids Easter eggs on the last day which was sweet, and later in the term one of the lower years TAs did a video session for all pupils a few weeks in and kids could make their own videos to email to school and share with the class which we did but not many others did.

We mostly did our own thing and didn't engage with school as there was nothing to engage with. No way of submitting work except dropping it off at the school office, but I was shielding so we gave that a swerve My DS learnt loads from us despite our jobs changing overnight and overflowing hours dramatically. We designed our own curriculum and delivered it alongside full-time WFH because school did virtually nothing. (A very leafy intake, only a handful of PP and fully staffed at time of lockdown. I was gobsmacked at how poor the provision was)

My older son's indie secondary was incredible and did live school from day one with loads of enrichment, contact and support to all pupils.

Mumof1andacat · 09/02/2023 23:55

We use to get a daily email with links to work sheets and you tube videos. We then had to take a photo of the work complete and up load it on an app. It was never marked as such. Teacher use to comment on it every so often. There were no zoom lessons or video teaching for us.

noblegiraffe · 10/02/2023 00:03

Then radio silence for three weeks

It was the Easter Holidays.

XelaM · 10/02/2023 00:16

My daughter's primary school had full days of virtual lessons. It was like being at school but online. Same timetable. She was at a private primary though.

user1477391263 · 10/02/2023 00:20

In Japan, where I lived, there was pretty much nothing in the way of provision and teachers did not do anything other than send some worksheets home (which we could pretty much choose to do or not do - the parents were to check them and they did not get handed in).

In lieu of this, the schools then shuffled the holidays about, reducing the summer vacation to two weeks and trimming the holidays on the rest of the year, adding some extra Saturday school days etc.

Overall, looking back, I think it was the best way to handle things; it avoided the wretched nightmare of online lessons, which really stressed out the parents and teachers and kids without the kids actually learning very much in most cases. Losing most of the summer vacation was actually OK. It made it easier for me to catch up on work, and it was great for the kids. My first thought was “What a shame for the poor kids, they are losing a proper summer vacation this year…” but the kids were GLAD to be back in school! They were happy and reassured by the return to normality, and you could see their faces lighting up to see their teachers and friends again. And there is essentially no learning loss here in Japan. I’m glad we did it this way.

I also think that in many countries “But….. we are doing online learning!!” became a reason to drag the school closures out longer - certainly in the United States this happened.

YetMoreNewBeginnings · 10/02/2023 00:27

Schools here really varied.

We had dealings with four schools as we had niece and nephew here as well as ours. So one secondary, two primaries and my youngest DDs specialist school.

Secondary was, and still is, a disaster. The HT managed to piss off his staff and parents. He seemed to think his staff could man the classes for keyworker kids and teach online full time. Equally thought every parent could provide access to a laptop (tablet wasn’t good enough originally) all day, every day regardless of wfh, multiple kids etc.

One of the primaries was amazing, but even they say it’s because they had very few children take up keyworker places. So teachers weren’t torn. Also because of its location lots of the teaching staff’s own children attend so that, they said, really helped when organising stuff.

Other primary muddled along, but that’s in an area with a lot of NHS staff so the school staff were juggling a lot of restrictions in the building with a lot of children around.

SEN school did what they could when they could.

2crossedout1 · 10/02/2023 05:39

That's true @user1477391263 about provision in other countries. My friend lives in California and her kids' school was shut for an entire year 😱

monitor1 · 10/02/2023 05:43

private schools both had full days teaching and HW which was marked. It's all to do with resources

Seashor · 10/02/2023 06:21

We delivered on line lessons and the grief we received were exhausting- don’t have the internet, no connection, no lap top, other children’s lessons at the same time etc etc.

We were lucky in that we had invested heavily in ICT so we had the capacity in our system to do on line teaching but many schools did not . Not their fault.

As usual, schools couldn’t do right for doing wrong and two years down the line, op’s still harping on about it!

Seashor · 10/02/2023 06:21

Was not were!

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