School Contact

[beepbeep]

This is NOT a school bashing thread!!!

I was wondering what contact people had been having from schools and what we should be expecting as reasonable?

I have 3 children (2 at secondary yrs 7&8, 1 at primary- yr5). The secondary approach has been VERY different at the secondary to the primary.

Secondary - phone calls from form tutors, emails from head of year. Daily contact & encouragement from different teachers when homework is handed in or when the children have had queries via 'show my homework app'. Some teachers have emailed in response to queries & been really supportive of the children's work as well as being concerned for their wellbeing.

Primary - using Google Classroom. Homework (other than English is to go onto websites and find work). English has been 3 week project so nothing to hand in. Queried something with teacher on Google Classroom - only way of contacting them 3 weeks ago - no response. DD had maybe 3 at most 1 line comments on her work. No other contact, no phone call, email or anything for 7 weeks.

I realised last night that she could have been under the patio for 7 weeks & they wouldn't have known!!!!

DD is getting quite upset about all the contact her siblings are getting, she waiting for assessment by CAHMS and getting quite anxious about the situation at times.

DH & I are doing the best we can, he is a frontline key worker so doing all sorts of random shifts and I am also a key worker, working full time but mostly from home (luckily I'm able to be flexible around DH's shifts).

I have emailed the head of the Primary to ask for some more support, but I am wondering what would be reasonable to expect? The difference between the primary & secondary approaches are pretty extreme!

[fandajji]

Andi doing as much or as little as they like is a great, well-being friendly message. However the academic gap is a huge worry. Once schools open fully there is going to be many kids held back and many dragged along without full learning taking place.

Attending to the needs of each child's academic ability is already a delicate balance that many teachers struggle to handle (myself included at times). With some moving through the curriculum with teacher guidance and others doing nothing, I personally really worry about the different approach each school and each parent is taking.

[Bigbaddebt]

3 kids all at secondary. 2 had exams cancelled, youngest in their first year. I’ve had emails for parents at least once a week. Kids have full timetables and work for every lesson. Some classes taught via video, other are prepared in advance. Children have all now moved onto their next academic year so they can get a head start on preparing for their exams next year. Not sure what happens if they get poor grades from their predicted results but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

We are lucky that we have enough computers for them all to work at the same time and decent wifi. No idea how you would manage otherwise.

School have exceeded my expectations. Hats off to the teachers for adapting so quickly and sending emails at midnight sometimes. We really appreciate.

OP I think you should email the primary school to make them aware as some don’t want to add to pressure at home by giving to much work or by contacting you too often. If you don’t ask you’ll never know.

[MinesAPintOfTea]

Primary. A batch of 6ish twinkl worksheets once a week. Then "motivational" messages regularly about how much nice stuff and photos of what she is doing with her DD. Who is in DS's class. I can't do half of that because I'm working pretty much FT (currently looking at work on Sunday evening and on MN because i cab any more). Occasionally this includes all the planning she's doing for next year, when DS won't be in her class. Surely she shouldn't normally spend teaching hours doing planning?

Another teacher had photos up on the school portal of all the scrubs she'd sewn in her free time. Of course she has free time if she isn't doing her job.

A weekly class via zoom for each "table" or even 15 mins 1 to 1 would be brilliant. More personal work and contact via direct phone or email that doesn't require faffy portals that are hard to upload to would be nice. Less gloating about family time on a portal that (unlike Facebook) I can't block, would be mildly considerate.

[SallyLovesCheese]

The issue of little or no contact DOES NOT lie with the teachers. It lies with the Academy Trusts, the "Executive" Heads, the SLT members who have never been teachers and the Government for pushing for academisation.

Teachers have to follow the policies and practices set by their school. If you don't or if you argue too much, you face being managed out through capability and that's obviously a risk many teachers won't want to take right now, as we know we're lucky to still have jobs at all.

Please contact the headteacher or executive head or senior leaders if you wish to complain about the level of contact you're receiving. I think it's entirely appropriate for children and their adult to have contact at least once a week from school during term-time.

[Paddingtonthebear]

Y2 in an Infants only school.
Work set every day since day 1 via email from class teacher and feedback given daily via email.
Starting this week the teachers are going to call each child in their class every week to see how they are.

[beepbeep]

Sallylovescheese I agree, I have emailed head but heard nothing back so far, but will give him some time to reply especially as it’s bank holiday weekend. The class teachers are a job share, I know one of them is in 1 days each 2 weeks (usually works 3.5 days) so could make phone calls after school ends for key children. But I expect the fact that I there has been no contact has come from the head as it’s the same up and down the school.
My DD’s school have stopped doing any weekly newsletter or anything. The only direct contact was a letter (through the post - I live 5 mins walk away) saying I owed £12 for lunches!! (I’ve paid it now!!!!)

[beepbeep]

Our school is LA, not an academy. Not sure that makes any difference?!

[DominaShantotto]

Our school is LA, there's been no dialogue with the governors regarding not communicating with families at all (I am one). This has come from the head.

[SallyLovesCheese]

I didn't mean it to sound as though it's just academies affected, I meant that the removal of all school jurisdiction from the LA has resulted in fragmented guidance for many headteachers, so there is no 'standard' for this kind of thing.

I mean, look at how differently schools teach Science, or MFL, or Sex Education. There's no blanket guidanceon things for all schools so we get these problems of different schools having completely different approaches.

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

‘Another teacher had photos up on the school portal of all the scrubs she'd sewn in her free time. Of course she has free time if she isn't doing her job’

I did this as l work part time. So in my own time and not school time.

The poster complaining her school hadn’t phoned and could have at the end of the day after key worker children have gone needs to know this. We leave at the same time as children as the school is closed after this point. And we can’t phone from home as no one has landlines anymore and you can’t make contact on your mobile.

[MinesAPintOfTea]

TheEmoji: bit the standard defence is that teachers have to look after their own children. My point is that not all do. And every other profession had to work out fast how to get people able to take calls at home. I could do it on a work number by day 3 of lockdown because it was a priority for my employer. Schools should also have made it a priority for teachers to have remote contact.

[TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince]

But they have safeguarding issues. They can’t just have ‘remote contact’.

It has to be via email or school phone number. There is no other way. How could the schools solve this with no national directive?