Covid primary schooling and virtual lessons

[Merryoldgoat]

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.

I taught online at ks1 level for virtually every lesson. The whole class were online either at home or school (for a few key worker children) while I taught the lesson. I was able to question them as in a usual lesson. Children completed their work offline at home and submitted it to be marked. To be fair, it was a steep learning curve for everyone and the first week or so was a bit dodgy!

Oh really? What contempt was that?

This has gone well 😂

No this was after the Easter holidays

I think this thread does show why there isn’t widespread support for teacher strikes outside of MN.

I know threads here insist that they’ve never worked harder but most people didn’t experience that. It makes little difference if a teacher at a different school was up until midnight if you were only getting a Twinkl worksheet.

No online lessons at my kids’ primary, but I doubt they would have worked anyway and I wouldn’t have wanted them as a parent. They tried to do some class check-ins on Skype in Jan 2021 and it was hilarious mayhem.

Both DC had work books dropped off in the first lockdown. Second one there was a whole class call every morning. There were some lessons via Teams such as English. As your child has an EHCP were you not offered a place in school for them? I was but didn’t take it up for DS2 as he would have struggled with the change. In the first lockdown I remember making a tick sheet for each child to do 5 tasks each day. Second one was way more organised.

Lockdown 2020 no one was prepared and we did do the worksheets or learning grids.

Lockdown 2021 our school doubled up classes to ensure one teacher would be online all day and one would be in class for key worker children. The children did the same work and accessed the same lessons.
Every day we provided two maths lessons and two literacy lessons. We would create a video with multiple examples of the concept being taught, going in to the detail and explanations of why and how and would finish the video by explicitly going over the task. Each afternoon we would be online for a check in call where children could come on and ask for help. Once a week we held a group catch up and used it as an opportunity to do a quiz, share news etc.
All of the videos were then uploaded after the teaching input so that children could go back and access them as and when they needed. It also meant that children who couldn't make the lesson could also go back and access them.
Every bit of work submitted recieved detailed feedback of strengths and next steps, as it would in class.

Our SMT were phoning people every week on a rotation to check in and, if parents were really struggling, their child came to school for a few days even if they weren't a key worker or vulnerable child.

We were all exhausted by the end of it but I wouldn't have it any other way. When those children came back more than 3/4 of them had made visible progress (we ran a series of small formative and summarise assessments to gauge where to start from).

Schools did the best they could. Some got up and running online, others didn't. Some teachers were more tech savvy, some pupils had more access to tech. Some pupils could manage sitting at home doing online lessons, they could listen and get on with work, others - not a chance in hell. Everyone did what they could manage, and we all survived.

We did a fairly full curriculum of online lessons but we didn't do any live lessons, beyond a weekly check in 'show and tell' zoom call. We are an infant school and it was agreed that virtual live lessons were not the best way forward for us, but was it something our parents would have wanted.

But we did provide lessons with pre recorded videos and activities daily. Core subjects of English, maths and phonics every day plus 2 foundation subjects a day . It was recommended but not compulsory at my school for pupils to complete every task.

DS's school - 2 x zoom a day and a work pack sent out on a thurs/fri for the following week. Parents could print this themselves or collect from the school door on a Friday if no printing resources available. (When this was within 'going out' guidelines!
Well-being Wednesday zoom where the children just got to spend their zoom able to chat to each other and a lot more informal.

My school - severe SEN was open throughout and we continued as normally as we could for the benefit of our children.

It also important to remember that the government suspended the school curriculum.

There was no advice to provide remote learning education in those first few weeks and remote live lessons was never part of what the government advised schools.

As a school we provided an optional curricular for those who wanted it, but it was not what the government expected us to do in their advice.

The government eventually provided Oak Academy and pushed Bitesize, including recorded lessons online and on TV. This was their recommendation iirr.

We had worksheets for the 1st few weeks (Borris promised it was only going to be two weeks) then it was online lessons for the full school day. The whole situation was rubbish the kids should never have been off. Ours quickly expanded the key work definition to basically anyone not working from home so by the second lock down most kids were in school

The government eventually provided Oak Academy

No, Oak Academy was set up by a bunch of teachers who bust an absolute gut over that first Easter holidays to get it set up. They asked the govt for some funding. The fact that the govt had nothing to do with its set-up bar some cash was why it actually worked.

And then parents complained if teachers actually used it

We put out a request in the local community and managed to get a few old laptops which out it tech got working well enough for some of our families to use ti access our learning platform and submit work.

The Chromebooks the government promised?
They, well 10 of them, turned up in late spring 2021 - well after both lockdowns had happened!

The whole situation was rubbish the kids should never have been off.

Schools were already closing due to lack of staff, and the schools that were open were more than half empty as parents kept their kids at home (who weren't being set work because schools were open).

Trying to keep them open would have been utterly unsustainable.

*There were three weren’t there?

March 20
Oct 20
Jan 21

is that not right?*

Schools didn't close to anyone in the short October 2020 lockdown.
During that lockdown schools remained open. However, many schools during that term were having frequent periods of 2 week isolations.

Our school was open throughout and had full bubbles pretty much from the start. We are close to 3-4 large teaching hospitals, and have a lot of medics, education staff, other key worker parents in our catchment.
So almost all of our teachers and TAs were in full time after the first couple of weeks or so.

First lock down the school provided you tube lessons .then moved onto teams from 10-2. Then children in 2 days a week 10-2 with other 3 days online. Certain children in 5 days. This is a primary SEn school.

First one - hardly anything just a worksheet

Second - not virtual lessons but work set and teams more active

In the first March 2020 lock down i had one child at Primary School. No virtual lessons, no "contact" other than messages posted on Teams. Didn't ever return to that school as he moved up to secondary in August 2020. My older two who were in secondary had nothing either.

Second Christmas - Easter lockdown 2021, only my oldest child who was in his final year at school had video lessons on Zoom, and only from one of the three subjects he was taking. We are in Scotland where lockdowns were longer than in England.

It was completely shit and yes I'm still bitter and angry about how government shafted children and young people. I have seen the direct result of the complete cutting of all contact for prolonged periods on my own kids.

First lockdown, all work was posted on padlets which parents could access if they wished but there was no expectation, chasing up
Second one, full online teaching from 9-3, we provided laptops and wireless access for those without it, either from existing resources, laptops we eventually got from the government or a local charity which provided recycled laptops. We used some readily available resources ( Joe Wickes taught PE!) but mainly teacher taught with breakout rooms for SEN/differentiated groups with TAs taking groups too. Children in school got exactly the same access but obviously had the teacher in front of them!
We were recommended for a National award for our efforts😊

Anger and annoyance is being given to the wrong group though. Teachers and schools didn't make the rules.

The government did.
The government suspended the curriculum, especially in lockdown 1.
No advice regarding online provision was given to schools.
Infact, for a lot of the time, schools who did provide online lessons, whether live or recorded or just a couple of worksheets, we're going over and above what the government advice was.

Schools generally found out what was happening at the same time as everyone else.
Official guidance, when it finally arrived, was woeful and arrived on Sunday evenings right before it right after lockdowns or reopenings.

The anger needs aiming at the government not schools, and certainly not individual teaching staff!

It was tough on non kw dc. Pretty much everyone realised how bad when you saw the rush in second lockdown to get a place.

The one good thing dc school did was severely limit places so focus could be on dc at home. I remember others with minority places at home on here and rest of class learning. Must have been so bad.

Sorry, you're right.
It was just what the government eventually suggested as provision iirr.