The school is shut, will your kid actually do any work set?

[noblegiraffe]

Lots of talk about schools ‘remote teaching’ and ‘setting work for the kids’. Very little discussion about whether the kids will actually engage.

My own primary kids would do some work because I’ll make them, but teenagers left in the house by themselves? Are they really going to be putting in hours each day?

[Myshinynewname]

Mine have a good work ethic anyway so I think they would be fine. If not, provided we are all well then I would plan to supervise them for part of the day and finish my own work in the evening. None are in exam years.

[Blueemeraldagain]

I teach in an SEMH secondary school and can say with some confidence my students will do next to nothing (largely because they literally won’t be able to- too concerned about where to get food etc from- we feed our students 3 times a day for free) impacting very negatively on their exam results leading to a dramatically increased chance they will turn to drugs/gangs/crime to get by.

[Snogood]

Nah. He'd have the best intentions but so easily distracted & would probably find a 1000 episode anime to watch.

[noblegiraffe]

That’s both sad and worrying, Blueemerald

[isittheholidaysyet]

Mine will.
DC1 (year 10) and DC2 (year 8) are home ed, DC1 has a GCSE booked.

If they shut schools, DC3 (year 6) can do a home ed trial ready for Sept when he joins us at home, and DC4 (year 4) struggles a lot in school, so it will be a chance to practice some basic skills and take it back a bit and fill in some gaps.

Whether I'll get them to do any work the school might set, that's a different question, but they'll have to do at least 2hrs a day for the sake of DC1.

[AlunWynsKnee]

Dd would. She's 13 and autistic. She's had weeks off school before and has happily done work sent home with no prompting from me
DS is a different kettle of fish in primary school. His homework involves at least one parent every week. It won't be pretty getting him to keep up.

[HoldMyLobster]

DD1's boarding school closed last year for a while because of flu. The classes were all run online and yes, she attended them all and did her homework and submitted it to be marked.

She had flu at the time but not all that badly so she was able to keep up.

We live in a US state where all students 7th grade and older are provided laptops by the school, which helped.

Not sure how it would all work for younger children.

[Comefromaway]

Ds wouldn’t. He’s autistic and year 11 and finds it difficult to focus. He would spend all day practising the piano.

[ffswhatnext]

It would depend on how it was presented tbh. Never mind not all stuff taught in schools that cannot be taught in your average family home.

One of the local suggestions was to do online lessons. Well that's great if the household has a spare or more computer to work on, never mind having a connection at home to begin with.

There was also suggestions about just sending the work home. Even putting aside older teens especially will be left unsupervised, how are they supposed to work it out for themselves without prior instruction? At least with homework, they have some understanding. If schools are closed, then what are the chances of the library remaining opened for those without equipment at home. Assuming, of course, that option is there, they might not even have the right resources or enough.

The age group that needs targetting is those sitting exams this year. Hopefully, they have gotten all their coursework almost finished if not finished already. They must be in serious panic mode at the moment and a lot more than usual.

The rest of them, playing catch up could prove difficult, so would the boards have enough time to rewrite the exams to exclude the missed material? But even that comes with problems as although they all teach the same things when it's taught varies from school to school.

[KoalasandRabbit]

My DS 9 (y8) is ASD and very rigid - school is for learning, home is for relaxing. He loves maths though so could easily be persuaded to do maths all day, everyday. Not sure any other subjects would get done unless I taught him but he's normally not keen on following curriculum and wants to do special interests like economics / finance.

DD (y9) claims she's going to arse around for 2 months as that's what everyone's plan is. She'll probably do that for a few days then get bored and start doing maths 24/7. Again not sure if other subjects will get done.

No idea if school will set work - currently they are just saying they are staying open no matter what and running school trips to Italy etc "as that's government guidance" in a kind of computer says I must do it and says there's no problem way. Don't get the impression any planning / risk assessment has gone on at SLT level, at least they are hiding it well if it has. I have raised going to Italy may not be the best of ideas but Head just replied government says it's fine. Though now it's been passed to a teacher who seems more sensible.

[BunsyGirl]

DS1 in year 5 would. I have already told him that he will be doing loads of 11+ prep when he asked whether school would be closing! DD2 age 6 in year 2 will be more challenging. We will work on reading and writing as much as we can (while DH and I also work from home) as he has struggled with those areas and is receiving extra support from the school.

[Maythelordopen1]

Well my 5 yr old isn’t even in school yet so I don’t have to worry about him... my 7 year old will read for me possibly and we will do some spellings, maths etc but I’m not going to force the matter...we'll do it in a fun way. I’ve ordered lots of arts and crafts bits just in case too!!

[MarieFromStTropez]

My DS’s school are planning to close. Classes will go ahead as per the normal timetable, but via Google Meet.

The boys are expected to wear full school uniform for the virtual school.

[SamsMumsCateracts]

Mine will be doing work. I stocked up on work books a few weeks ago and have gotten copies of their curriculum from their teachers. My eldest has ADHD and thrives on the routine and challenge of school, so he'll need to be kept busy. My youngest will be trickier to convince!

[ffswhatnext]

@KoalasandRabbit sounds like a couple of local schools. Carry on as usual. No plans of closure. They do keep people updated though, even if it's to say if we have a positive test, that person and those who have been in direct contact won't be attending. Don't know how this works if they had been sneezing away whilst traipsing around the building. But apparently it's the advice they are getting.

[Parker231]

Mine are older now but if their school closed when they were younger, they would have had to come to work with me or entertain themselves if I was working from home. I doubt any school work would have been done.

[Sgtmajormummy]

After three weeks Italy has set up Google Suite classroom for students 11yo+. Not sure about primary.
It has streaming with live chat, lesson archives, document sharing and register for who’s online, who’s seen the videos etc.
It’s being rolled out now and will be monitored for attendance and marks.
Not ideal but it does have leverage to get them working.
Until now it was mostly revision through the school register and site.
Quite exciting, actually.
But it involves a bit of micromanaging from the parents to get the younger kids using it.

[Purpleartichoke]

For neurotypical children of any age, this is really a parenting issue. Kids who don’t do the work will need privileges removed and possibly even parents sitting with them to study. Inconvenient, certainly, but it may be a necessity.

[Parker231]

Impossible to sit with them to make them work if you are at home working or taking them into your work with you. Work doesn’t stop if schools close.

[SylviaC]

Yes mine would. Both in exam years and pretty concientious (gah! no idea how to actually spell that!). DC1 was a bit of a slacker in younger days but I would have been checking every day to make sure it was done.

However I work part time so have time to do this - the kids who miss out in this situation will be those in families with less time/ money/ internet access etc.

[ffswhatnext]

Full uniform for virtual school. Why?

That would be a hell no to getting my youngest one to do that.
He's a teen but to him, school is the uniform, home is woohoo I can finally relax out of the stiff clothing.

Then with video camera, this would bring about other issues because it would invade his space at home. And no matter how we tried to reassure him that only the teacher could see him, he wouldn't be convinced. And if it's the class thing, nope, not happening. Yea I know it makes no sense because he sees them in school, he invites his mates here. But to him it makes sense. Oh, eventually he will tell me why, possibly in a couple of months time at stupid o clock in the morning.

[ffswhatnext]

Even NT could struggle with the work depending on how it's delivered. If it's just the child and parent and sent home actual classwork, no amount of consequences is going to work because the child might not know the material, and there's no saying the parents can help because their lives still have to carry on, or they don't know-how.

With one I did have to home-educate for a period of time. I've worked in education myself. Even with getting a tutor it was hard doing the actual classwork.

[DarkMutterings]

We've been homeschooling since end of Jan here in HK
Works great for kids who are engaged or have parents who make them be engaged. They are tracked and missing work is chased up, schools in the most part have been really great

In my opinion, it doesn't great work for
Very young kids who have the attention spans of gnats, need adult supervision and who should be 'learning through play'
Kids who struggle in any way be it minor learning difficulties, to more serious SEN, to just a bit anxious
Families with little or no tech either financial or through choice
Families with issues ranging from uninterested/unsupportive parents to abusive
Kids whose parents have to be out of the house so are left unsupervised- obviously down to individuals motivation and indeed level of understanding/independence even if motivated.

Every country has a version of dual working parents / jobs that can't be done from home / kids with Learning/emotional/physical difficulties / abusive environments / families living pay check to pay check. Honestly, the biggest learning I take from HK being a few weeks ahead of the UK, is this will hit the vulnerable far harder than you imagine. The best thing anyone can do is push for support after the virus calms down because whilst the social distancing or lock down is pretty shit, it's the long term impact that's going to the most difficult.

Whether you believe in the "scaremongering" or not, it is truly heartbreaking to see the impact this is going to have on some parts of society.

[Devlesko]

Mine is GCSE year and working her ass off, so yes, I know mine would.
Now, our 2 grown up ds, One would have done, the other wouldn't have attempted anything without a bomb up his backside.

[ThanksForAllTheFish]

Providing we are not actually ill, my DD would be doing her work. She wouldn’t like it. She would complain and faff about having to do it but she would get it done. I would make her, the same way I make her do her homework. She’s 10. She likes school because she’s a social creature. She enjoys working in groups and the whole classroom environment. She likes to get her work done first in class etc. She struggles with getting motivated to do homework because she’s alone and is easily distracted. If she had to do school work remotely I would have to sit with her and make sure she stays in task.

I can imagine it would be tricker with teenagers as they are generally more independent and have the whole teenage hormones (ie: adults know nothing and they know everything) thing going on.