If blended learning was the thing for all of next academic year?

[porktangle]

www.thenational.scot/news/18454764.blended-learning-become-new-normal-schools-return/

This is obviously just an article and anything could actually change in the next year but I read this and suddenly the possible next academic year just hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't know why it's taken until now tbh. I think I've just been thinking about June 1st mostly!

I could still work (I'm full time main earner) but husband couldn't so we'd have significant money problems after a few months. My son is autistic and wouldn't have his EHCP fulfilled. He's done reduced timetables before and they were a disaster, he ended up out of education for over a year.

If blended learning (half in school with social distancing, half at home remote learning) is for the next academic year.....how would you manage?

It's you who is being dramatic. And abusive quite frankly.

Abusive. Righty-oh.

You are being dramatic Boyo. Children have a fundamental right to a free, full time school place and we should expect the government to provide this. Not just shrug our shoulders and accept a piss poor alternative.

Realistically this will end up with three groups of children:

• the ones who have a SAHP willing and able to support their learning, or whose working parents can hire in a nanny/tutor. They'll be fine.

• the ones with working parents who won't be able to support much learning beyond the basics, even if they're working from home. Maybe some worksheets will get done.

• the ones who'll get nothing when they're not in school.

No childcare issues as mine are 16 & 18 but both are autistic and studying practical, vocational Performing arts courses (or Ds will be come September if he gets the GCSE grades).

Remote learning isn't anywhere near as labour intensive as face to face.

Dh is a teacher. Remote learning is exhausting. He’s in post 16 education. Even accounting for his current lack of commute he’s been working harder & more intensely since college closed.

Maybe, I dunno, see what they are doing in the rest of Europe and copy them

Apart from Sweden, the rest of Europe are doing part time are they not?

I don't think any European countries have plans to do part-time for the next academic year, have they? Not sure many have planned that far ahead at all.

Remote learning isn't anywhere near as labour intensive as face to face.

Maybe not once it's been set up and running for a few years, or if it's all centralised (and if one size fits all then why don't we do this for normal school?). The current system, however, is. It's taken me four hours to adapt one lesson to online this morning, it would normally take me about 20 minutes to look at what I've done before and adapt it to my class. Marking takes a lot longer too. The only reason I'm coping with this is that over half my timetable is exam classes who I don't need to plan for.

I think people are missing that we're not talking about NOW, or 1st June in Scotland. Schools in Scotland will not be open this term, apart for keyworker children who have been attending since day 1.

We are talking about plans for August when schools return, another 10 weeks away in the distance. This is when the wishy washy blended approach will be implemented, with children in schools for a third of the time and doing god knows what else for the rest of the time.

Quite what working parents are supposed to do with younger children for the 50% or more of the time when they're not in school nobody knows. It's a shit show which is all about getting one up on Westminster - look at nasty Boris sending all those poor children back to school and putting all the hero teachers in danger. Here in Scotland we are DIFFERENT and SPECIAL and are quite happy to throw children's education and well-being under the bus to prove that we're so caring and special and did I mention we were DIFFERENT and therefore need INDEPENDENCE?

We’ve now had info from school. Year six only from 8 June. Strict social distancing - 4-7 per class. No mixing at break times. Eating in classrooms. No packed lunches so a free school dinner for all every day. Must wear clean clothes every day so no uniform. Mandatory temperature changes. Optional for staff to wear PPE. Enhanced cleaning and hygiene practices.

How on earth are they going to expand provision to other years. This is a school of nearly a thousand pupils and part of an academy chain that has confirmed it is reopening.

It's a shit show which is all about getting one up on Westminster - look at nasty Boris sending all those poor children back to school and putting all the hero teachers in danger. Here in Scotland we are DIFFERENT and SPECIAL and are quite happy to throw children's education and well-being under the bus to prove that we're so caring and special and did I mention we were DIFFERENT and therefore need INDEPENDENCE?

YES, absolutely this. It’s a politically motivated decision and it’s a disgrace. I’m in England but I’ll be furious if they go down the same route.

It’s a novel attempt by Sturgeon to flatten the attainment gap - make sure no child receives a proper education.

It’s a novel attempt by Sturgeon to flatten the attainment gap - make sure no child receives a proper education.

Lovelydovey

What was you expecting?

It's going to be a great gift for the Scottish Tories if our kids aren't back by early 2021 and England's are. "Look at the SNP, holding our children's back, held hostage by awkward unions, when we've proved it's safe elsewhere. Vote Tory at the Holyrood elections and we'll get schools up and running again."

It’s a novel attempt by Sturgeon to flatten the attainment gap - make sure no child receives a proper education 😂

@Beawillalwaysbetopdog no it’s not as good for it all to be centralised, it fact it’s shit but since that is what the unions appear to be arguing for by saying that teachers can’t do individual zoom or mark books that’s why it’s so bizzare, they’re talking teachers out of jobs and kids out of education.

Agree that this is some mad dystopian nightmare where the daily mail and the Tory right are the ones arguing for free universal education and the left are not

Agree that this is some mad dystopian nightmare where the daily mail and the Tory right are the ones arguing for free universal education and the left are not

I really feel like we are in some bizarre social experiment where everyone has to argue the opposition of what they normally believe.

Also I really hope schools stop fining parents for having time off in time because it will be completely unjustified. Bet they still do it though.

Thinking about systems that actually do lots of in-home learning, like the School of the Air in Australia, there is an expectation that either a parent is around to support learning or they hire in someone. For Scottish families it seems like we’re getting some vagueness about WFH and asking employers to be flexible?

I think this is a massive deal. The attainment gap in scotland is already large and
widening. We are utterly failing these children.

We have to get back to normal and I am furious about it all.

I almost have no words to describe how ridiculous the proposal for very part time schooling is. I’m just hoping that over text summer when life starts opening up again we all lose our collective fear and evaluate the risks rationally that we’ll all realise how ridiculous this is.

Anyway trying to focus on how to make the best of this - how are you going to manage?

In our household we’re both very fortunate to be able to work from home, but the current flexibility my job is currently allowing is not going to last much longer. At the moment I’m managing to get a few hours to sit with (and I have to actually sit with) my youngest primary child to get them to do anything remotely resembling school work. This is just not sustainable.

We’ve never had family to rely on for childcare so that’s not going to change.

I really want to scream

teachers can’t do individual zoom or mark books

Genuine question, but why is a zoom lesson better? I'm doing videos of all my lessons which include tasks for the kids to do. I'm making automarked multiple choice quizzes for each lesson to give them and me immediate feedback and setting an exam question once a fortnight which is marked and sent back.

Holding the attention of 32 children at the same time is not an easy task at the best of times. I just cannot see how it can happen remotely, and that's ignoring the significant safeguarding aspects.

And not to mention how this is going to have such a huge detrimental effect on children from disadvantaged families, and wider society.

SCREAM

Options we are looking at:

• my mum comes to help with supervising schooling. She’s over 70 and I’m not comfortable with the risks but she’s desperate to help so that’s one option.

• one of us takes unpaid leave for a while and we combine this with a mortgage holiday, could maybe keep going for a few months?

• one of us drops down to part time plus mortgage holiday - sustainable for a bit longer but doubt employers would allow this at the moment

• we give up one of our jobs and lose our house

• we accept school-age DC’s education is just not really going to happen.

Don’t want to increase risk to my mum but we are not being left with a lot of options here.