Is the School work being sent home actually compulsory?

[MrsHusky]

My kids teacher has sent home a 'suggested' time table, and enough work to keep them occupied for 4hrs a day... and told us its compulsory the kids do it.

I am not a teacher, I also have a special needs child at home. Do they really have the right to expect me to be schooling my daughter for 4-5hrs a day when i'm actually a full time carer for a disabled child?

It's because we teachers are being told that the expectation is that we will teach remotely and set work for the pupils to do as if we were in school.
We are aware generally, that it will be difficult for many to do it for various reasons.

One of which is that the schools that the kids are being sent to are officially classified as 'not educational' so they could well be in the childcare setting all day and not be facilitated to be able to do their work there either.

Kids are being told to follow the school timetable to help provide structure for their days and to help them organise themselves.

Secondary kids will be expected to work fairly independently, not be taught by parents.

It’s going to be potentially half a year before they’re back at school so structure and routine will be very important even if they can’t manage it all.

Everyone is seeing how it goes. We’ve never done this before.

My school are asking us to email in every day with "proof" of our child's work and how it is going. I wouldn't have a problem with this except I have 3 primary aged kids all of whom want reporting via different platforms! How I'm going to keep up with each of their ages, requirements & then report as well, I don't know. Plus at the moment I still have no information on the work they should be doing. Nothing! It's awful. Presumably the teacher will upload something over the weekend.

Do they want the kids to provide proof? Not unreasonable, especially for older kids.

Do they want the parents to provide proof? Ridiculous and not sustainable.

If it is the second, I would email the teacher and leadership telling them your situation. Hopefully, they will scale down their expectations for all parents and students.

I'm sure there will be kids out there with no access to the internet or online learning.

I'm also certain that very soon we will just be thankful to be making it through this with our children's health intact.

we’re not going to be able to do it as dp and I both working normal weeks from home now. We can’t fully school our kids on top of that

Well, I suspect they mean four hours a day, five days a week, term time only.

Over the next twenty eight days, there are ten school days, so forty hours is expected in those four weeks, or one hour twenty minutes a day. Does that sound more manageable?

Yes DD yr 7 has told me she will be following her normal timetable from home. I hope she can sort herself out, as DH and I will be working from home. She’s usually fairly independent with these things now though. Mostly...

My DD has broken down her timetable and I’m honestly shocked by how little learning she’s doing at school. I concede she is on her reception year but she reads once a week fgs. I’m shocked by home much telly she says they watch (I believe her).
All that has been sent home is links to online ‘games’. Some phonics based but others are like racing a car.
She also only died PE once a week for less then an hour.
We are doing reading a book, phonics, maths, exercise and spelling (new to her) everyday. This is with a 2yr old DS at home too.
She’s loving it, sleeping longer and eating well. I’m actually considering home schooling her from now on.

Did PE! Not died.

Assuming no additional needs, I would expect a year 6 to be able to do quite a lot of the work independently. I've looked through Year 3 DD's work for the week and she won't need an adult constantly 'schooling' her. Even when they're at school, there are 30 kids in the classroom so they're not receiving 1:1 teacher input for 4-5 hours a day.

As a secondary school teacher, one of my (minor in the circumstances) worries is that when schools go back, I'll be juggling some students who have done no work and will be months behind on the curriculum, and others who have done as much as if they were in school. We are asking for students to submit some homework as normal, but I can't dish out detentions to those who don't do it.

Of course, if you really can't do it, you really can't do it. But if your DD can manage to work semi-independently, it will give her some normality as well as avoiding falling behind.

If it goes on for a long time , there is going to be a massive gap between some children, who have chosen to / who's parents have made them go above and beyond on everything covered , and other children who have basically done nothing at all.
Also 4 hours of her working, doesn't mean 4 hours of you supervising, it means probably 30/45 minutes of you explaining stuff / looking at what she has done, and the rest of the time her actually doing the stuff.

@WyfOfBathe

You beat me to it! Exactly what I was thinking!

Although I suspect there will be kids who do more than if they were at school

Having been a tutor in the film industry, children need to do a set number of hours of school work per day, as well as often being available on set from 8am until 6pm (and earlier/later for travel/make up/costume etc). It’s surprising how much work a few 10-20mins blocks here & there add up to. You squeeze in whatever you can whenever you can.

These are strange times. Good luck & good wishes to all of you who have young children & challenging circumstances in the next few weeks & months.

You could spread it out over the Easter holidays and try for 2 hours a day if that seems more manageable. It is not compulsory though and I wouldn't have thought that a year 6 would miss out on too much. There will be an awful lot of children who do no work or next to no work during this time sadly, so just do that you can.

I'm astounded schools want proof! Just do what you can. all bets are off! Structure is the main thing, any actual learning is a bonus.

I lost a year of childhood learning age 5-6 due to illness but I managed to catch up. I would argue the Personal developments in that period are what shaped me as a human. Relax guys

By the way my DC's school said that we shouldn't expect work to be marked so I don't think all schools will want proof.

As PP said: what are they going to do about it if it isn't done?
Just do what you feel like and can manage. This is an unprecendented situation and we need to be kind to ourselves.
I've been self isolating for the past week so I'm already in a routine. The kids (7 and 4 yrs old) have an hour or two between them for academics.
Thats what I can fit in around working from home, playing with them (which they really need- especially playing outside), housework and cooking.
DS (7) is actually quite far behind academically.
The great thing about this situation is I can meet him where he is and really drill him on the basics, without having to worry about "keeping up" with whatever the rest of the class are doing.
When the work from the school comes I will only be doing it if its a) relevant to his actual academic needs or b)interesting. Otherwise we'll just stick with what we're doing.

4 hours of working, doesn't mean 4 hours of you supervising, it means probably 30/45 minutes of you explaining stuff / looking at what she has done, and the rest of the time her actually doing the stuff.

That's all great, but if you work in a bog standard job (like me) from 8-4 with 1h commute each end??? How on earth is this feasible? (Yes, my DC is well looked after by my 16year old DC who also has homework to do.)

Governors and OFSTED will ultimately want proof. And for the teacher it’s not really proof, it’s evidence that your child is understanding the work they have been given to do. If the teacher doesn’t know that your child didn’t understand it they won’t be able to help them and then they will just move onto the next topic. The teachers are expected to teach during school closures. They are not just sending out stuff to keep your child busy for a few hours.

Governors and OFSTED will ultimately want proof.

No they won’t. This will be bottom of their long list of things to worry about. If Ofsted/DfE wanted proof they’d have issued guidance about what they expect. No guidance has been given.

My school, for example, isn’t demanding any proof, neither is my kids’ primary school. They all know everyone is doing their best in terrible circumstances and that every person’s situation is different.

Of course it’s not. I’m a lone parent to 4 two with disabilities, I’m not in a position to home school hence why I don’t, not gonna Start now. There is no way I could get them to do it

I'm worried about this too, lone parent working (more than) full time from home plus 3 children in different school years with different sets of work. I desperately don't want them to fall behind but I can't afford to fall behind either.

I think as PPs have said we can only do our best.

Our school is starting next week and said that week won’t count towards grades as they get used to it. Which means going forward they need to do the work for grades.

I'm viewing it as optional,. I might not even look at it. My dd is year 2. Wise words from our wonderful head below

"We understand that you may be anxious about your school closing and that you maybe feeling pressure to ensure your children are home schooled properly. However, this is going to be a worrying time for everyone, and our children will be able to feel it. Trying to force your children to learn rarely works and it is likely to make an already stressful situation much worse.
Read to them and have fun. They will learn that when something bad has happened, their family played with them, distracted them and loved them. They will remember this as a fun time, rather than a frightening one. Please encourage your children to follow the activities on our homework website but please don’t worry about whether it worked or not.
None of us have never experienced anything like this and we will do our very best to support you as best we can over the coming months. Please do your best to follow all the public health advice given to keep you and your family safe and we hope to be up and running again as soon as we possibly can. We will miss all the children dearly during the closure time and we hope that you all stay safe and healthy."

I wouldn’t say it’s compulsory but it will really help them when they go back to have covered bits.

I home Ed my eldest already so I’m more set up for all this. I currently do 3 hours sit down work planned by me per day with my girls and they do extra online. My 10 yr old with Down Syndrome also has work to do and his eldest sister is going to help him do it while I focus on their sister and her work sent home from school.

No one it all has to be done in one sitting so I’d split it, maybe do the bulk in the morning and save the easiest/lightest bits for evening when you’re all tired.