What work are your children being set?

[BunsyGirl]

My children are being set the same amount of work for the classes they would have had at school plus some homework on top. It’s unsustainable, particularly for my Year 2 who needs a significant amount of supervision. I am trying to WFH as well as supervise the home schooling and, after day 2, I am on the verge of a breakdown. My DC’s go to a private school so the cynic in me thinks they are doing it to justify their fees. Meanwhile, the few people that I have spoken to with kids at state schools are getting very little work set by the school. Is that the norm?

My 4 year old in Reception is hardly being set anything. A phonics video to watch a day, a (very short) counting exercise and she has to write a letter to a different classmate every day this week. I'm worried about her falling behind with her reading as she was doing so well. I've looked at the work on Twinkl which is great, but don't want to repeat things the school have already done or ruin their hard work. It's so hard.

Mine are at a state primary and they are getting way too much. Eldest can cope, but I need to sit with the younger ones to get anything out of them (the 5 year old was even incapable of concentrating on a phonics video on her own today whilst I desperately tried to get DS to understand his maths).

It's a nightmare - I think they've just put the planned work for this week straight up on the online learning platform with little thought of what that actually means for parents, especially parents of multiple children who are actually trying to work at the same time. They are even putting up work from the wider curriculum, not just basic core skills FFS.

We set what we knew was far too much with the expectation the children and parents would pick and choose, but certainly wouldn’t be doing it all. Some parents want none, some want massive amounts. We never get it right! 🤷‍♀️

I would agree they are justifying the fees. There are threads on here from posters Exemplifying exactly why this will be the case (not you op). I’d concentrate on fun, reading, shapes and numbers and not worry. They will catch up

nightmare - I think they've just put the planned work for this week straight up on the online learning platform with little thought of what that actually means for parents, especially parents of multiple children who are actually trying to work at the same time.

I completely agree.

Email the school and let them know. Feedback will be useful for them.

Dd is at an international school in China and we have had home learning since 10th Feb. The first few weeks were a bit bumpy with too much work and it was challenging getting used to a new home life.
Dd’s School sends a weekly survey to patents and students asking what went well and what needs to be improved. Many changes have been implemented as a result of this feedback.

We set what we knew was far too much with the expectation the children and parents would pick and choose, but certainly wouldn’t be doing it all.

Our school haven’t said that at all though. The expectation is that it’s all done!

This is a scary time for all of us-I think we need to be protecting our children’s mental health and maybe easing off on academic study a little. Certainly making it clear what’s expected and what’s ‘extra’.

Yr 8 child. Far too much in quantity. Multiple deadlines to juggle and monitor- short term, medium term, long term. He's overwhelmed and just as we've made a plan for the day, more pings into his homework app. Then more comes through in the evening.
It's too much to expect kids to sit alone and study relentlessly with no interaction from a teacher or other children. No one to work in pairs. No group discussion. No explanation, help or motivation. Too intense, too lonely, too much.

Remember this is an unknown to school, just give them this feedback and hopefully they will act on it.
We haven’t given anywhere near that though and have made it very clear that there are not consequences for not doing it. (Primary) that would be very unfair as all have different circumstances.

Mine are Yr 5 and Yr 9. Yr5 gets tasks on class dojo each morning, maths and English. Plus teacher posts useful other ideas for PE or creative activities or Duolingo for French. Yr9 gets the week of work uploaded on share point at the start of the week and has made her own schedule of what subjects to do each day. So far the work is taking just a morning. Afternoon they do a chore each, play in the garden or today they baked bread. They are both in continual contact with friends, Yr 5 via xbox headset they did spellings together this morning. Yr9 is on Snapchat and WhatsApp to pals, they compare work etc that way. I'm involved very little, busy wfh, on calls all day.

Normal timetable all done on zoom, plus homework all this week, break for Easter hols then back to the same.

Dc at international school. They have a full schedule of e learning with teachers.
But thankfully no homework because honestly I'm not sure I could cope with that!

As teachers we’ve been thrown in the deep end and forced to resort to google classrooms and nearpod. We didn’t get ages to sit together and plan it out. In fact when we aren’t on the rota to be in school looking after they keyworkers children were at home having to be ready for questions about the work and to look at what’s submitted as well as plan what goes on next.

One of the women in my year group is on the rota to be at work this week and another is at home trying to do this work whilst she has her two year old at home with her. If I’m quite honest, at least for me and my coworkers we don’t give a f&ck how much you do ¯\(ツ)/¯

This is a completely new situation, I think most of us would all like to be at home self isolating rather than worrying about being on a rota to teach the kids whose parents are most likely to pass the virus on.

No we don’t want your children to fall behind but what’s more worrying is the children who needed to be at school because we can’t guarantee what kind of home life they have and we can’t monitor it but some how don’t have social workers yet. The kids that don’t have EHC plans yet that really need them because they are vulnerable and probably could do with coming to school so that their parents get a break and then can keep up a steady home life for them.

Honestly, as long as you try a bit, you read with them, then nobodies going to be wagging their finger at you... because really during this crisis it’s not really at The forefront whether you’ve done absolutely everything right.

If I’m quite honest, at least for me and my coworkers we don’t give a f&ck how much you do ¯\(ツ)/¯

Fine by me, but the school needs to make that clear to the stressed kids who feel like they are drowning. They won’t listen to us saying it doesn’t matter if they don’t do it all, but they will listen to you.

We are in public school. Got stack of work home. Takes most of the day, but achievable for us. Assume its same as every other day in school. Part of our problem is it's quite complex work, difficult for us to mark it. I'm not working at moment but fully understand the pain for parents who are working.

Just talk to your child's school. We're all doing this with no prior knowledge, last-minute.

As seen by some threads on here tonight, some parents want more work, some less. Some want more worksheets for children to work through independently, some want more structure dictated by the teacher...

We are never going to get it right for all parents. We can't in our usual work but especially not when we're fumbling around in the dark! But if you contact the school and explain, things can change. We're not mind readers!

@fedup21
Our school did and we still couldn’t win. We made suggestions of all the non academic stuff you could choose to do with your children.

Supplied access to tons of resources and websites for parents should they want it. Told them how the work could be accessed.
I told the 12 kids that turned up on the final Friday that I hope they all have a lovely time spent with their families and that I would hopefully see them soon. From here on out it’s up to their parents to tell them what the demands are. They aren’t in my care

@Prepenultimate - "He's overwhelmed and just as we've made a plan for the day, more pings into his homework app. Then more comes through in the evening"

Yes! Exactly that... DS also in Y8 and it's been relentless. As well as the app, it also turns out he's getting additional stuff via his school email account, which I've no visibility of!

I'm still going to work (key worker) and DH is WFH desperately trying to keep his business going. I wrote up a timetable for this week and next, with as much guidance as I could for each task, but he's getting very little input aside from that, he's just getting on with it best he can. I've told him to ignore anything else that comes through for the time being.

DD is Y5 and was sent home with enough tasks to cover 2 weeks, assuming 4.5ish hours "school" a week. That doesn't include any physical exercise, reading time or music. Again, I've timetabled for her, and left guidance, but she's finding it really difficult without supervision.

My intention is to keep a structure and get stuff done up until the "Easter Hols" and then stop. Then we'll figure out what we're doing after Easter!

In fact it’s even possible these kids won’t even be in the same year group when they return. Who knows. If that is the case something will have to be thought out nationwide anyway because all of the children are going to be missing huge chunks of learning.

There are doing it so that they are still providing an education for your school fees. It’s completely up to you how much of it you do though. Use at least until after the Easter holidays as a sort of transition period as you all adjust. It’s important that you have time to do your work too.

Also schools are trying to please everyone. Some people will want loads of stuff and ‘proper’ schoolwork. There should be things that your children can do mainly independently though at least once you start them off. Reading is the number one thing you can do to support your children’s learning so prioritise reading to your children and let them read to you.

You don't have to do the work, it's not compulsory.

Have a look at it, choose what you and your DC would like to do.

More importantly, what's their favourite subject or topic of interest? Ask them what they'd really like to learn about and let them do that for a significant amount of time, without the restrictions of school holding them back.

My 11 year old is currently teaching himself 3D modelling from online tutorials and using free software he found online. What he's learnt in a week is incredible! Adult level professional. I'm so impressed with him, he's loving it and learning a really useful skill.

My 7 year old is doing her own blog and really getting into it. It's time consuming but she's learning leads of skills.

School has to be really prescriptive else they wouldn't be able to manage 30 kids to a class. But homeschooling doesn't need to be. There are pros and cons to both convential school and home school.

One of the massive benefits of homeschooling is that kids can be supported to follow their own interests, which is a great luxury. Hopefully they'll be back at school soon enough. I'd rather my DS and DD return to school a bit behind with their maths (along with everyone else) but having learnt new skills that really play to their strengths, than battling them to do stuff they really don't want to for the next couple of months.

(We're still doing maths, English etc! Just not as often as in school).

I should add to my earlier post, I massively appreciate the fact that work is being sent, and at such short notice, it's just that it's been so overwhelming and a struggle to figure out what to get done and when!

Oh, and it should've read "assuming 4.5 hours "school" a day, not a week 😂... A week would be more than manageable!