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?

I’m a secondary teacher and it has been a frantic day getting things set up and fielding lots of emails from pupils . We use showbie so lots of messages going on there as new groups are set up and info sent to kids. We’ve had feedback from parents already and the head emailed to ask us to be mindful of what it looks like at the other end. It should really calm down in the next week. This set up phase sends lots of notifications- plus our school asked us to set something due in for Friday to test the system. They aren’t expecting work to be set over the Easter holiday for KS3. Going forward I am expecting to set a package of work at the start of the week and collect it at the end. We are feeling our way at the moment.

DS school have set a fair bit and given an timetable and enough ideas that it's sustainable with other online stuff ongoing. DDs schoo,have set barely anything. I'm lucky in that I'm a sahp so have combined them both into an easier than school but still something timetable. I'd not be able to manage DSs stuff if I needed to wfh though, dds stuff maybe.

My 5 year old in Y1 has a phonics exercise (15 min) and maths exercise to do every day (eg. Mathletics, 20-30 min). He also has a piece of writing to complete for the week which we are spending about 30 min on per day (most of that is thinking and discussing time!). Reading is just normal read a school book once per day (15 min). These are the most important things to complete I think.

Then he has a menu of other things linked to the curriculum, eg. History - watch the queen's coronation, renact it if you want etc. These I think are less important and just fitting them in if we can.

As for any other enrichment activities or otherwise that are floating about on social media, I'm just ignoring everything. The above, plus some time to play outside and a bit of tv is more than enough.

^^I did actually email the school today to say thank you for making the school work short and to the point, rather than overwhelming us with too many resources.

My advice would be a bit of reading.
One piece of English and one piece of maths a day. Depending on what you’re sent, maybe downsize to doing a portion of each of what’s given if needed.

The calls for worksheets from people is really difficult. Anyone in school is there to look after the welfare of the children that are there. And anyone who isn’t shouldn’t be going in to print out, photocopy and distribute paper.

We're all bedding in. Give it time - ds is year 3. I'm a GCSE teacher wfh.

Ds has done:
*PE with Joe

• about 20 minutes worth of maths (took him an hour as he was messing, chatting, wanting to look at work I was setting for my classes etc.
• a reading/ comprehension exercise from a book *Art - painted rainbows on the front windows *played, facetimed his grandparents who he would usually see 3x a week.

Not structured, not what school set but what he could cope with and we could do around wfh.

Needs much - bed in, spend time and ease along. There's no rush.

State school here kids seem be getting set four things plus Joe wicks. Spelling, literacy, Maths and something else French today, science tomorrow. Reading for homework. Work expected to be done and returned. 250 question sumdog challenge today which took forever.

Private school Y10. They log on for first class at 8.50 and follow normal schedule until day ends at 4.30. Maybe slightly less homework, but they did have a physics exam today. Each class takes attendance. Most teachers are teaching from home. Some are more successful than others, and no idea how more hands on classes (like DT) are handling it. But they even did Games! In her small bedroom she did burpees, plank, wall sit, push ups and designed a circuit to do. She's quite academic and motivated and is worried that they will fall behind, but so far for this week it has been going like clockwork. They will resume this regime after Easter break until they are allowed back to school. For kids that did not have the equipment they managed to provide at least an ipad, though as it's private I don't think many families didn't have at least one laptop and/or ipad. If there are several kids in a family it does get a bit tricky but so far so good.
However if it was my son, that would be different! He'd make the online classes but little hope of him doing homework on top. But that would be the case if he was physically at school too.

I'm just covering the basics right now. Phonics games and counting games with the youngest (5) and teaching the eldest (9) proper handwriting and touch typing. (Her writing is appalling!!)

I shoot for 1.5 - 2 hours and the rest is them playing, drawing, making videos, and copious amounts of disney plus.

I'm in Scotland and NS has strongly hinted this is going to be us until August. It's only week one. Everything is up in the air. Everyone is stressed. Children can sense the worry in the air. It's all so new for them.

I wouldn't worry about not getting it done, and I'd cut it all right back to the bone.

Teach at a state primary. DH teaches at a different one and DD is at yet another.
We are all doing things differently as that’s what we’ve been told to do. None of it will ever be checked.

Private schools - I can imagine if they weren’t giving enough work, some parents would bee kicking off or would refuse to pay fees. If you don’t want to do the work, it doesn’t matter at all, they will be fine. Pay the fees though, and don’t hold the school accountable for any lack of progress - it is nobody’s fault.

Be, not bloody bee 🐝
OP having reread my message it sounds very snippy. Absolutely not intended and I’m sure you are doing great, lower your expectations!

To give you an idea of what we are facing, 16 different tasks have been set so far this week and some of them have multiple things to do on them. This is for DS2 who is six years old and in year 2.

Year 6 DS - he's been set daily work - English, Maths and usually something else. Nothing huge . He's got spellings and can do times tables rockstars. School have calculated at it's roughly 2 hours work. They also suggest they start the day with the PE with Joe workout .

I've been picking and choosing what he does, depending on his mood. School have been very relaxed - it's there if we want it, if not don't stress. Today I picked an activity that was educational but also incorporated DS's interests.

My year 6 is not being set a large amount. She is being set some maths and English daily by the school and there are other websites which they recommend, but it doesn't take up a lot of time.

I am on A/L this week and have set her enough work to keep her going for a good few weeks. I have quite enjoyed it. She is learning things she wouldn't likely learn at school, but which I feel it is still beneficial. It is all very relaxed though.

My year 9 is being set a fair amount. Enough to keep her occupied and she has timetabled lessons.

DD is year 4 at a state primary.

Very little tbh! Daily, a short reading comprehension; a couple of pages of grammar and a couple of pages of maths. She's finishing it all in well under an hour. There's also a weekly project this week that shouldn't take more than a couple of hours overall.

Don't do it all then .
Teachers are not sat there monitoring how much work kids are doing, we're too busy prepping for next year and trying not to get ill ourselves.
To all parents- do what you can and fuck the rest. If the school does happen to get on your back (very unlikely) tell them to piss off.

Yr5 dd (private school) gets about an hours maths, an hours English, spellings with a weekly test, topic work and then one or two more other subjects a day (today was computing and recorder practice). Everything has to be uploaded to google classroom by 3pm when the teacher google meets with them to discuss the work. It’s just about manageable as she’s pretty independent.

Preschool dd (nearly 4 same school) gets storytime from the teacher via google meets, then daily tasks - today was letter writing practice, make your name out of things outside, talk about where food comes from, kids yoga, word box practice etc - that’s a little tougher as I’m working from home so juggling doing my work and hers (again we upload pictures of what she’s done)

Don't do it all then hmmTeachers are not sat there monitoring how much work kids are doing, we're too busy prepping for next year and trying not to get ill ourselves. To all parents- do what you can and fuck the rest. If the school does happen to get on your back (very unlikely) tell them to piss off.

Well, I think schools should be told when they are setting too much. I would rather know, as a teacher (I am), that what I’m setting is inappropriate and stressing the kids out.

Mine has been sat at her computer every single day this week 8.30-4.30 (with time for lunch) and still only has 3/4 of the set work finished. She is stressed and knackered, missing her school friends and has barely seen the sun. Even now, she’s worried that next week will bring more of the same and she will get further behind. That is not good. She isn’t anywhere completing any of the lessons and she has worked really hard. If they said, do this bit and if you want to, do this, it’s fine. Her school isn’t-all teachers are saying, ‘do all of these things and email them to me. Tomorrow’s work will be emailed tomorrow morning’. It’s all been computer work. She has cried every day!

We've been set next to fuck all (Y4 primary) which is a massive pisstake after all The grief I've been given for DD attendance due to chronic illness. They gave us a link to twinkl but no specific resources so like looking for needle in a haystack.
I have worked out an emergency core timetable which comes out as effectively 45 mins maths, 45 mins English per day plus breaks in the morning. Using a Year 4 maths workbook, BBC bitesize and books from home for reading, comprehension, I will need to invent some creative writing activities.
We will do cooking, gardening, arts and crafts, walks. nature stuff etc in the afternoon.

Fedup21 why are you letting her spend that much time working and watching her cry?! Give her a couple of days break, use that time to flick through the workload and pick out a bit of each subject. All kids will be behind, this is something unprecedented. Her mental wellbeing is more important than plowing through schoolwork.

Mine has very little set tbh.
So because I work part time from home, I have set activities that my child can do when I am working with a minimal level of support for all the basic areas.
Then on the days I don't work, I focus on the areas my child cannot do independent of me and have a wider range including science, geography and history.

I personally don't see any problem with my doing something that is later repeated or has been taught as this will be consolidation.

I'm also focussing on things like Handwriting which the school obviously do, but one on one is more effective.

But I suppose I have found it easier as I have an education background before children and have always "topped up" my child's learning at home trying to fill the gaps that they had.

Our children are living through a global crisis. Put their mental health and well being first, please! I'm setting work for my year one class but trying to keep it as light as possible. They do not need to be sat at desks all day doing worksheets. If someone thinks I'm setting too much they do not need to do it. This is new to us all. Let children play and relax, life is pretty scary right now.