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.

2 things I will not forget

My dyslexic child receiving worksheet after worksheet she could not use - we gave up and she watched newsround.

My older child being expected to learn Spanish from scratch by PDF. - he didn't.

I don’t know, at the time we only had one primary age child and our other child was still able to attend nursery, so it wasn’t something we had to deal with.

It was really tricky for schools, because for every child in your position - a parent able to work 1:1 with a child with a suitable device - there will have been at least one (and often many) for whom that would have been utterly impractical and actively excluding.

Given all the other demands on schools at the time - as well as all the other personal considerations for school staff such as their own children; tech access; social work; vulnerable relatives - decisions around ‘best fit for the greatest number’ often meant ‘not really ideal for anyone’.

I would love to see, by the way, a full study on different models of ‘remote learning’, for which lockdown schooling would provide a huge bank of data.

It’s a really unusual situation, in which both teachers and pupils started as total novices - nothing in teacher training or leadership training covered mass delivery of remote learning - and as a result there was a mass of different approaches; providers; timetables; teaching and feedback routes ; technology etc etc. Its rapid evolution, adaptation and refinement was hectic, and often involved blind alleys and inefficient approaches.

What I think is lacking is a really full evaluation- what REALLy led to best learning? Is ‘live online delivery of lessons’ really a gold standard? Does the best approach depend on age? Are the critical factors actually nothing to do with the delivery, but all about the home environment? How do differences between socio-economic groups affect this? What about provision for SEN children, particularly those who follow an adapted curriculum or who require 1:1 support to access work in the classroom?

I am not sure that the answers about genuinely effective learning online will be quite the same as we might expect, and what we are likely to find is that there is no ‘one size fits all’.

In my state primary we did live lessons from 9-12. Then we provided video lessons for the afternoon for kids to watch and do in own time. We also phone called each family once a week for a catch up. We also had online assemblies, online talent show, online lunch clubs for children to just chat to friends. All kids who had EHCP's were invited to come into school.

@Abraxan no we saw no government Chromebook's it was doing something like this I think www.pcworld.com/article/393375/how-to-turn-a-laptop-into-a-chromebook.html
Which is a hack I need to remember
Also the school seemed to know how to get any devise whether a games console or whatever to do Teams 😂
The first day was a bit crazy with everything getting going but the school closed the first day back after Xmas when the schools were closed telling parents it was to train teachers and get kit to all.
My work actually lent my son an old office laptop as my boss was in a similar boat so dug out some and offered parents in the team. This led me to encourage other parents to ask around a bit.

To some extent it wasn't proper school but it was lovely I still remember crying on day 2 when teacher did a singing lesson online and said it was really good as when they had been back in they hadn't been able to sing. Hearing 30 8 year olds weekly sing abba songs was cheery during that awful lockdown January

We used to unmute all and sing Happy Birthday to anyone whose birthday was that day. A truly horrible time-lagged cacophony but very cheery!

We had nothing much in 1st lockdown but 2nd was 9-10 lesson with an hour to continue the work, 11-12 lesson with an hour after to do work, afternoon lessons were pre recorded but work was handed in by 3pm, 3-3.30 was story time/ assembly etc
I had 2 in primary and a toddler, it was hard work and looking back I wish I hadn't done any of it as it was so stressful and even thinking about it now sends my heart rate up

The teacher strikes, despite what some claim, do have public support, and have more support in the age group that are most likely to have school-aged children.

The first lockdown we had very little; workbooks that kids work through if they wanted to. 2nd lockdown we had online lessons that were available every day with probably a couple of hours work to do...

Conversely my friend's children's school, which is a very high achieving state school (has been in the top ten primaries), sent absolutely nothing home.