To expect homework and revision to be put on Teams?

[Riversideandrelax]

At my DD's school they use Teams but also have a paper planner.

Some teachers put all homework/revision on Teams whether it is online homework or real life work. (Some go above and beyond and give summaries of the lesson's learning!) Some put the instructions for the homework on Teams but don't add the worksheet or whatever you need to complete it. Some just don't put it on at all.

My DD is in Y7 and has autism. She is immature for her age and has a lot of executive functioning issues and motor skill issues affecting her writing.She does her best with her homework but I keep an eye on Teams to make sure she completes homework/revision. The problem is in class sometimes she doesn't get all the homework written down due to her motor skills. She also sometimes misses school and then does not know about the homework or test.

Wouldn't it just be better to put it all on Teams then everyone knows? And include the resources so if someone wasn't in class they can still complete the homework. Surely in this day and age that's not too much to ask?

It would make such a difference for my DD.

I like to hear opinions as to if I am unreasonable before talking to the school.

Tell dd to use her mobile to make voice notes or take photo of friends diary. We di this with both dc who have sen as have similar issue with school

I see your point.

However my SEN DD finds things on teams pretty stressful, so would also need it properly explained in class and worksheets given out.

(When she was in secondary some teachers would check she had written down complicated h/w correctly)

well, if I get to school as the school opens and stay until physically thrown out at night, and don't have a chance to put everything onto teams that people want on teams, then it doesn't go on teams.

it can take 10 minutes to put something on teams

You might have 10 things people want on teams every day.

teams isn't very reliable anyway, particularly right now as it is mid upgrade. you can spend an hour putting things on teams and it doesn't save

And the other objection I have to putting things on teams is that a large proportion of children immediately switch off in the classroom if they hear something is going on teams, because they kid themselves they will look later.

I think YABU to ask for everything on teams, YANBU to ask for support to be put in place to ensure your child has accessible homework. You need to discuss with school how the teacher ensures your SEND child has recorded it properly.

Does your child have a TA in the class? Or a friend who could help her to record it? As a teacher I would struggle to put everything on Teams. I have 18 classes so the workload on top of everything else would just be too much.

They aren't allowed mobiles at school. Also that doesn't help if she wasn't in class.

When I say she misses school, sometimes she's not in but sometimes she's in the learning support centre or with her learning mentor.

If it's on Teams I can explain it and print worksheets or whatever. I don't mean it shouldn't be explained in class and worksheets handed out but on Teams for those it is helpful for.

It's interesting that some teachers manage to put all homework/revision on Teams plus lots extra.

And how on earth does it take you 10 min?! Perhaps you need some support in to how to use it?

I mean object all you like but don't complain if the h/w isn't done, revision not done and cooking items not brought in! Why have a system if you're not going to use it!

That would only deal with the issue if she was in class.

She doesn't have an individual one but there is a TA in her class and they do sometimes write her homework for her. I think they have a few to help, though. They sit in set places so she is not necessarily next to a friend. And she's not very good at asking for what she needs.

Obviously workload is the first thing I thought. But so many manage I don't understand how some can't. Well, maybe if it takes them 10 minutes to post on Teams. I do find that a bit hard to believe, though.

You are being quite rude, you have asked a question and I have tried to answer it for you. I know exactly how to use Teams, thank you, and how long it takes. Just opening it can take several minutes. And then opening the Team you want can take several more. And editing and saving the work you want to upload in the correct format to upload it can take a very long time. And all sorts of other parts of the process may work or not work or go quickly or slowly.

Some teachers may have time to put everything on teams, they may be part time, they may be cutting corners in other places, I know a teacher who does it all in the lesson, fine, except he is absent to the children for a significant part of each lesson.

Teachers can't do everything. They make choices. Some may make the choice to use teams more, and do less planning/marking, etc.

I do use teams, but not to the extent I am being nagged to use teams, all day every day, by students who largely see it as a way not to have to do any organising or recording themselves.

If you child is absent with a learning mentor, then ask the mentor to help her find a way to record whatever it is she is supposed to be recording but is not doing.

I think it is good practice for a teacher to both write prep on the board in good time in the lesson (5 to 10 mins before end) and also to put it on Teams.

However, I did forget from time to time and did not take kindly to being pulled up on it. Ultimately secondary pupils do need to take responsibility for their own learning and, if they have SEN, systems need to be put in place to support them.

But there are lots of ways that your daughter can help herself and lots of ways to help her. She should ask a friend to share a picture of the prep with her, If she can’t do that, you could maybe ask a supportive parent in her class.

There is nothing wrong with politely asking the school to remind teachers to put the homework on Teams, but you should also remind your daughter to try to help herself.

My son's school moved exclusively to Teams and some teachers still don't put everything on there. And then give the kids detentions for not doing work that they set on an online maths app for example. Drives me nuts. I don't think it's too much to ask for everything to be in one place. Maybe having class materials added is a bit too much to expect, but the actual homework should be there.

The school has to put a plan in place for your DD. Talk to the SEN department and get form tutor.

it can’t be that she has to rely on others students, sorry.

I know one of D’s fellow pupils is sever dyslexic and was allowed to take photos of the board instead of writing it down, but the phone was in her bag until the last 5 minutes of each class. Such things aren’t different to her using a laptop later for anything they wrote during class time. The plan was tailor made for her.

We had this sort of double system at our secondary for a while. They always used to write it all in their homework diaries and that was the rule. Then they introduced a homework app thing, and teachers were supposed to put it on there, but for about a year there was a right mish mash of the app and the written diary. It was quite hard for the kids to manage. Eventually it has all shifted to the app and it’s much better.

It took a few years though before we would absolutely leave the kids to it though. We did a lot of checking and asking each day what homework they’d been given etc. Gradually wound back once they proved they were managing it all themselves (though we still check in). So don’t feel bad that you need to hover and help - it’s pretty normal.

I would ask the school, but do bear in mind that it’ll be easier for some teachers than others, it took a while for some of ours to get the hang of doing it a different way, and they’re all hugely busy. I’d approach it in a “teams is really helpful and I’d like to give feedback that it’s a great thing and it would be good for us if more teachers used it” kind of way. Be really careful not to give any hint of “it’s the teachers fault my child isn’t doing their homework” !

@Pfpppl ,

You are sounding like a pupil making excuses for not getting their prep done because a teacher forgets to put it on Teams (easily done, especially if you have already given it out clearly in class).

If most of the class do it, the few that don’t have been looking for an out, not desperately scanning Teams! And what I say to them is that prep is for their benefit, not mine, and they still have to do it. Whether I would give a detention for it would be age or pupil specific. Definitely would Year 10 and 11, probably wouldn’t below. For 6th formers, it is their loss, they just don’t get the work marked.

But Year 7 are still transitioning and, especially with SEN, I would check they had written the prep down and help them oIf necessary.

You mentioned cooking ingredients as an example. My son’s school provided ingredient lists for the whole term at the start of term and if he lost that list then he would have asked a friend to send a photo of their list. It was a paper list rather than teams and my son with ADHD knew to photograph and send me a copy (as I buy the ingredients ) as soon as he got the list.

If I hadn’t recorded my homework correctly back when I was at school then I would have called a friend. Does your dd have a friend that she can call? Taking a photo of a planner takes seconds

Schools don't generally expect Year 7 chlidren to do the homework if they are not in class (as they would have missed the lesson leading up to the homework).

If your DC is with a learning mentor, then there should be something in place for her to "catch up" on what she's missed in the lesson she's not attending. The onus is not on DD's (or your) shoulders to work out how to do this.

I taught secondary for ages.

We used to upload stuff to an app called Satchel.

Yes it can easily take 10 minutes or more. And bigger departments can have lots more teachers to just upload across a dept.

There were 1 1/2 in my dept. It took ages to upload it all.

What a rude, passive aggressive response.

why are you being so rude?

You sound like another of these parents who believe teachers stroll into classrooms at 9am and leave at 3pm doing not much in between.

In an ideal world, I am sure the perfect system would be prefered. Feel free to pay for specific private school with much smaller classrooms and more staff who have time to keep the parents happy.

Perhaps you need some support on how schools actually work?

I use teams a lot with my classes. But loading resources does take some time so I can understand not everything being on there. Currently being bombarded with things to do for this year and September. I can see why some teachers don't have the time to do this every day.

Just for context, I think I was pretty efficient as a teacher, but I think that it took me between 2 and 5 minutes for each upload. You had to click into the class, set a title, put some blurb about what was required and then maybe upload a worksheet. Then there might also be an extension and you would either have to attach it selectively or give clear instructions about who should attempt it. Sometimes you would also attach the PowerPoint you had used in class.

So if you taught 3 classes pre break and had a 10 minute break, that is half of it gone. And then you would probably have several e mails of varying levels of importance and final preparations for your classes after break (grabbing materials, uploading PowerPoints etc) And a colleague might want a chat about a problem pupil and you might even want a coffee and two minutes of down time!

Teaching is the ultimate InBox sorting task and uploading a Year 7 prep to Firefly or Teams comes pretty low in terms of priority.

I am not saying that it shouldn’t be done; it should. But pupils should proactively look for their prep, not passively scan Teams and hope for the best. Same goes (even more so) for parents when they are helping.

I could just as easily say that you sound like a teacher making excuses for not doing their job properly! At my son's school have done away with planners which they used to use to record homework. Teacher says at the end of the lesson they are setting homework on a maths website, but doesn't set it as an assignment on teams. If children then forget to do it, I don't think it's their fault, especially if it's set one week and not due until the next. I know as an adult I forget to do things if I don't put reminders on my phone or stick them in my calendar. And as a parent who periodically checks teams to make sure their child is doing their homework, I can't see it if it isn't their either. It's only 1 or 2 teachers that forget to put stuff on there, so that says to me it's their issue. All the other teachers manage it and it's the one place homework should be recorded.

At work we use Outlook for meeting invites. If someone asked me in person today to attend a meeting next week, but then didn't send me the calendar invite then I'd probably forget. I don't see the difference.

I think l just why some teachers put it on and some don’t.

If it’’s not whole school policy they don’t have to do it. If the kids still have a planner it’s fine for them to record it in there.

If the kids know their getting Mathsand they have the website why does it need to be on Teams.

My Dd used to get loads of maths set like this. They knew they had to do it, and they just worked through it.