Why aren't teachers providing lessons by Skype?

[Folicky]

If schools are to close, which they will eventually, why don't they teach the lessons via a video link / Skype? At the moment, as I understand it, if schools close, parents - many of whom will be working from home - will he expected to home school their children. How is that going to work?

Could they at least structure the days a bit, provide a timetable or send out tasks at intervals? Sending home a giant work pack is not great (tho lots of work for teachers)

@Aramox

I don’t know how they’d manage it.

I’m sat hear trying to mark; chat to pupils via email which takes so much more time and I’m trying to keep my son studying.

My pupils know I’m at the end of an email though and will answer them straight away.

Also I think this is another problem with leaving it so late to close schools. If they'd closed them before everyone started getting sick and self-isolating then the teachers would have been closer to a fully-staffed level, giving them more resources to spend some time working out how to move to this new model of teaching.

I really feel for teachers in the UK right now.

I think the OP should read, and re-read @DoubleAction's post at 06:26:55

"Work" is very much a side issue for some of our most vulnerable pupils not being at school

My children's school are doing normal lessons through google meet. They are both exhausted after this week - far harder than normal lessons no gdpr issues as they can see the teacher and board and asked at various times to speak via a button to ensure they are there. My daughter did it off a phone and my son off his iPad.

The teacher can't see them but can hear them if needed

Because ...

www.facebook.com/foilarmsandhog/videos/899444937160368/

There is more to life than endless studying. Hour in morning hour in afternoon is plenty for younger kids.

It’s prohibited in my aunt’s school. They basically don’t want teachers in kid’s rooms.

Mine are 15 and 17 - so at important times academically

We are using Teams. Member of SLT is a member of each Team for safeguarding reasons. So when I am teaching my lesson can be observed - they can see what I post, chat and assign

@Paddy1234 the exam groups take priority. work is set and has a pretty tight turnaround.

It seems to me that most teachers have basically sent home a few worksheets and downed tools until September.

My DS1 is at uni and his lecturers have been running online seminars with reading lists etc provided. DS2 is in Year 10 and has had nothing for most subjects.

To be frank, I don't know why teachers still have jobs if they're just going to be sitting on their arses for 5 months. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some form of skype/facetime style lessons.

Otherwise, I don't see why they shouldn't just be furloughed like other employees who can't work on 80% pay.

Piss off stormyclouds honestly. We have had enough of this teacher bashing which only shows up how little you actually know about what we are doing - perhaps you had a bad experience at school yourself, and that is why you show such ignorance?
I've been pulling my hair out today trying to keep on top of the amount of work my dc's schools are sending home. While also managing to mark the work I set my own pupils on Monday, on a system I have no experience of using.

I have really been impressed with the app that my children’s school has set up. Easy to navigate but it does rely heavily on me. Happily for my children I am a teacher (I work for a charity now) and I am happy to plan and prep lessons for my kids.

But the app is essentially uploading twinkl sheets and nothing like the planning or prep or teaching. I see no reason why there isn’t lessons via zoom or something similar.

Definitely for Secondary I think this should be expected - other wise. If they cannot work because of childcare then I don’t think they should still being paid a full time wage. It needs to be proportional and fair to the work that they do.

I’ve been using google classroom. Between managing (Planning, marking, responding) that I have to make welfare calls on 30 children a week, some daily. It takes hours as parents don’t answer.
I have children emailing me all day and into the evening. I’m incredibly worried about some of them. Everyone is on rota for days in school where they will risk getting the virus.
Trust me, I’d much rather be teaching normally. I’m ending each day with a headache because of the stress. Complaints about too much work and too little work.
Some people are so hung up on teachers having time off.

The teaching unions have all said no to live video teaching from both a student and teacher safeguarding point of view. To explain further, there's the potential for teachers' images/voice/video to be manipulated, and that could potentially be career ending. Teachers also have children of their own and these could be exposed to risks. From the point of view of students, it's also a risk as very occasionally teachers will sexually exploit pupils, and it would be relatively easy to do this via video call.

I'm aware of a few private schools who are doing this but they are recording everything via the school's remote server. I know ours wouldn't cope with this.

Also, have you ever been on a video call with 30 people, not all of whom are co-operative?

Some schools are doing live chats via Teams or Google Classroom. I think in many ways this is a more responsive way of teaching as no-one's questions get missed and students can scroll back and find the relevant answer etc. Work can also be easily submitted and corrected via Teams. Everything is in writing, so there is less of a safeguarding risk or potential for allegations to be made. However, Teams is getting quite creaky at the moment, and this does rely on every pupil being able to get online at a set time. There are also some pupils who really struggle with the tech side of this- it works best if you have set it up in class in advance.

Another issue with live teaching is that those teachers who are in school looking after key worker children can't do it- should their classes miss out?

Other schools are setting work using an app like Show My Homework, and responding to questions via email etc. This works well for children who can't all get online at a set time- they can complete the work at their own pace and then email it to the teacher for feedback- they can also email the teacher questions throughout the day. This is probably not the most effective method of teaching BUT it is probably the most accessible for many pupils. You can set work which can be completed with a smart phone and pen/paper. Setting effective work this way requires lots of changes to planning, and so the teachers will also be planning whilst dealing with queries.

It's very clear from when I'm getting work submitted, a lot of my students are completing work at odd times of day. It might just be because this suits them, but I also suspect some are sharing laptops or having to do childcare at other times.

Also, I have had enough difficulty getting them logged into seneca without being able to talk through it in class. Getting them onto teams or zoom would be a whole other challenge.

Perhaps if BoJo had been honest, and given us a few weeks to prepare, we could have got classes really set up for remote learning?

I also think that as the situation progresses, any system that relies on one teacher per class will inevitably start to struggle.

@SansaSnark

To be frank, if the teaching unions are unwilling or unable to countenance what is now a mainstream teaching tool around the world and in higher education here, I'd be telling teachers that their services are no longer required until September and placing them on furlough.

Facilities like microsoft teams have been used with great success elsewhere. Of course there is the potential for issues, but these need to be managed in a sensible and proportionate way rather than being obstinate in the face of new approaches (which seems to be the way of teaching unions).

The money saved on teachers' wages could even be put towards contracting private tutors or teachers from overseas who are not afraid of technology.

The money saved on teachers' wages could even be put towards contracting private tutors or teachers from overseas who are not afraid of technology.

So in your scenario, there would still be enough money to pay furloughed teachers 80% of their wage AND pay teachers from overseas to teach remotely? What planet do you live one? Clearly one where magic money trees grow.

There are other issues with your ilk-thought out suggestion. You think teachers from overseas would all know the U.K. curriculum inside out, would they? And all the individuals in their class? Their academic abilities, strengths and weaknesses, family circumstances, the fact that Sam in Year 8 set 5 doesn’t want to engage because he lost his mum to cancer 6 months ago and he’s finding this whole thing extra hard, with his dad out all day at work and home at night shattered. Or that Max in Year 10 has s mother who is an alcoholic and whose dad wants to leave home but feels like he can’t at the moment so he’s either stressed and short-tempered or depressed and the atmosphere at home is AWFUL. What about the many MANY households whose IT equipment is not up to date enough to deal with video conferencing and lag etc, if they have any at all?

Where are you going to get all these numbers of overseas teachers from exactly? When they’ll presumably be already in a job elsewhere if they were any good, and teaching their OWN pupils during their own country’s lockdown?

And if other people temporarily laid off in other jobs are getting 80% of their wage paid to them and they’re just at home not doing their usual job in any way because it’s impossible for them to do their job from home, then surely if you want teachers to be furloughed in the same way then they’d have every right to argue the same should apply to them, so why then should they do ANYTHING work-related, especially if your army of overseas teachers are doing all the work anyway?

I don’t think you’ve really thought it through. And I don’t think you can claim to know what’s happening in every other family in every other school in every other country which is on lockdown. I’m pretty sure that other country’s have even less home technology than in the U.K. to do remote learning with.

Personally, I would like aN earlier start to the next academic year to be considered once t seems like we've Reached a peak , if it’s looking like the most severe lockdown restrictions will lifted by August. I know some families will have had holidays booked but I have a feeling that travel restrictions might still be in place in a lot of places so I guess a lot will be cancelled anyway. A few extra weeks tagged on to the beginning of the academic year would provide an opportunity for pupils to catch up. And these few panicky weeks of parents not knowing how/unable to home school can just be written off as school weeks and made holiday instead. It wouldn’t be perfect, but would take a lot of the pressure off staff AND families.

We have only just started using Teams and some students are not set up on it yet.

I work in FE and have used Teams with some of my students using live chat.

The work is set for them and they complete it during normal lesson time, and ask me questions using live chat or audio with screen share. I have small groups rather than a class of 30 though.

OP, have a look at what unions have said about live streaming lessons.

Our secondary school is doing a great job.

Teachers were thrown in to this and are having to work out Microsoft teams etc in front of their whole classes (and wider family members) unlike me who is just working it out for my small team with no one else watching.

Hats off to them, I can see the lovely cheery upbeat messages they are sending to their classes.

They are doing their best in really difficult circumstances .

The whole thing is a huge compromise. Just as it is in any job right now.
Everyone is just trying their best. There's always people arguing for a recent to the bottom. Sad.

*Aramox

Could they at least structure the days a bit, provide a timetable or send out tasks at intervals!

That’s what we are doing - tasks are sent out according to a timetable and the answers/model work is sent out later for self assessment. Teachers are available to answer student questions during set times - otherwise the blurring between school/personal is too much.

Stormy you seem to be using a global pandemic to teacher bash. Why do you think you’re doing that?

Your little darlings especially teenagers cant fucking trusted that's why!

My sons' school is using Google Classroom, which for us is a lot better than live teaching.

1. Our internet cannot cope with 4 of us working at home
2. DS2 can complete the work very quickly - he has preferred not being talked through concepts
3. DS2 suffers from migraines, so it is easier for him to catch up
4. Some of their classes just prat about, would be really annoying while trying to follow a live video. Would be annoying for the teacher too. One kid's already been told off for being incredibly rude about a teacher in a live chat - he thought the teacher couldn't see what he was writing
5. Frankly, it's a lot of listening with no tangible interaction - anyone who's ever been on a course knows how that can be!

From my point of view, not all of my class have access to a laptop or tablet (the vulnerable kids).
About 25% of those that do, have to share with siblings.
Plus I'm in with key worker kids on some days.
A platform where I can set and receive works best for both our home and working situation.

It's amazing, the amount of scathing entitlement still abound when people are trying their best.