Calls from school - welfare

[OnTheMoors]

Are school form tutours calling all of the children's parents in their form /class?

We aren't calling all students yet- but will start after Easter. "Vulnerable" students have been receiving regular phonecalls- is there any reason you could be within this group?

We are also asked to flag up any students who suddenly stop responding to emails/sending in work, or ones who have generally been unresponsive to emails etc.

A call a day on the face of it seems excessive, but if the school have reason to be worried about your dc, then refusing it or not answering the call will raise more red flags.

We have been told the form tutor will be in touch each week via email
But he is year 9 - so a bit older and different school to my other child.

My daughter's (yr 7) form teacher is effectively in almost daily contact via chat as she is also her Maths teacher and chatting about work set ect. She has also responded to questions about the work and some technical issues!

We had 2 calls per child per week so far, one at the beginning and the end and then one yesterday for one and one today for the other. Ours want to speak to the kids as well as us. This is for all pupils at our school. We have also been asked to keep in touch via the school app and send photo's across of what they have been up to.
It isn't personal, it is their job to check on their welfare and the workload etc.

sockbogies that sounds rubbish for you and your DD. The home learning packs from classroom secrets are quite good, there are practical ideas as well as maths and English stuff and there is an answer sheet! My DD is really missing her friends and teachers as well. She has had video WhatsApp calls with a few on my phone which has helped a bit.

We haven't had any communication whatsoever from Primary School. Not even a generic text or email since we finished. Given their past form, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Secondary, we've had various generic emails (to kids and to parents) and notes from teachers on the app, all encouraging and asking pupils to look after their well-being etc.

Ds is year 11 and autistic. He is getting one email a week from the TA that he met on a individual basis in school.

Dh and I were cc'd in to the email he received last week although I was sent to him and he is expected to reply. She told him of he didn't reply then she would phone him so that she could maintain contact.

Ds has had some mental health difficulties so I guess he would be considered more vulnerable.

At the moment he isn't too bad anxiety wiaeI think that mighg

Posted too soon, keyboard seemed to go strange!
He's not too bad anxiety wise, but he's been isolated for long time, so we will have to wait and see the impact on him after this.

Fuck all apart from very limited homework from any school...

Thanks for your replies, yeah its certainly made a difficult time much harder, especially for the kids to lose all contact. I'm trying to be patient at the moment as I appreciate they've had lots to sort, but between so many teachers a handful of poorly put together slides isn't great. With no teaching experience I could have knocked these up myself in half an hour. Yet they've added videos of teachers dancing to Tik to,pk (about 8 of these) so have had the time to do these. I'm going to give them another week and then contact them.

I've only had one last week from my DS2's school. He has an EHCP, so classed as vulnerable, and they were just checking up on him, making sure he was doing ok, they'll be phoning every week.

Very little from DDs primary school...2 vague projects to do for last week and this. Similar to Sockbogie a massive list of websites and links to work through with zero guidance. We were sent an email from teacher last Monday and asked to reply in order to demonstrate we'd managed to log onto student portal but nothing since not even in response to DD submitting one of her projects and certainly no calls. Am disappointed to be honest...

We are getting a call every day for dd2, she does have a EHCP and gets free school meals, they call to check she’s ok and that we have food. Today was the first day we didn’t get a call. It does get a bit awkward as I don’t have much to report other than that dd refuses to do any school work.

Schools contacting parents and pupils is all to do with child safeguarding and well being. Reality is that the advice coming from the DfE is coming out in dribs and drabs, the info around safeguarding and well being came out late Friday and not that comprehensive. As such you have schools who had already realised early last week that they need to be keeping in touch with vulnerable pupils and schools that are only now realising that there is an expectation on them to keep in contact with pupils.

Nothing I'm aware of from primary or secondary. DP met Year 6 DS2's teacher from all the way back in Year 1 in the street - I think she was a supply teacher initially (she's Canadian) but she has moved to our area since she started working at school. We have a high proportion of children with special needs or who are from families who need extra support. Also lots of families in temporary accommodation and/or who may be living in lockdown in one or two rooms.

I'd be worrying that they are trying to phone the landline but I know that they have and use my mobile number in normal times. Deep breath.

OP, good luck with the anxiety. Is there someone you can sound off to occasionally, even if it's by phone or online?

Nope no calls at all since they broke up. 3 children at school. The school haven’t called I would probably tell them to stop if they were calling daily, seems excessive but then if your child is vulnerable that would probably be the reason.

Sockbogie, when would the scheduled school holidays have been? I think ours would have been next week and the one after, as Easter is the weekend after next.

He has SEN (no EHCP) in mainstream. That's what surprised me, as in most secondary schools there is quite a lot of SEN pupils. Phoning them all could be very time consuming?

Well that’s probably why then. Although my daughter has autism and we still haven’t received any calls. So probably down to the individual school. Maybe they are checking if you are coping??

It's funny really because no one has phoned us in the previous 8 years of our son's education, during any of the 13 weeks of school holidays each year

To be frank, I'd far rather teachers were teaching online lessons than wasting time phoning every single child.

Of course they should stay in contact with DC who are known to be vulnerable, but it seems to me that some teachers are using every possible excuse to avoid actually teaching anything for 6 months.

Yea I get regular calls and texts. This week it's about what will happen during the holidays. We do have some issues ongoing though, and during holidays, someone sends a couple of texts to see how things are going.

With lots of cutbacks and now this, it's nice to have some support.
It's management/pastoral that I've always been in contact with.
I've always made it abundantly clear they don't have to call, a text is absolutely fine especially at the moment.

Not all schools are set up to teach online.

Mine's SN, no EHCP, we've had no phone calls but I asked senco if school wanted updates and said I could do daily or weekly or each lesson as DS has lost every password and senco said he'ld love daily. So I send him a daily update on DS. DS hasn't communicated with anyone other than me but that's normal for DS.

The unions have said today teachers should not do this! One to one calls with pupils is out

I’ve had 4 calls last week, & so far 2 this week, DS is SEN doing life skills at college, so 20. We’ve also been locked down for almost 4 weeks, because he doesn’t have the lungs to deal with COVID. I’m not sure if we’re getting frequent calls because of the SEN. DD who isn’t SEN but at same college, heard nothing from her tutors.