Are others with older secondary kids struggling to monitor their work?

[P1ece0fTheWorld]

My ds is year 10, has own laptop. I can’t get into his school accounts to check he is keeping up with work set. Can’t bug school to go through everything and check. It’s GCSEs next year and important he is doing everything properly.

How are you monitoring things?

I have his office 365 login on my phone so I can see emails going back and forth and I can make sure nothing is being missed or done but not submitted back to the teacher. He is only y8 though and needs the constant nudge to do any work.

I'm shocked that as a year 10 tutor and head of core subject I haven't had more emails from parents

Haven't felt the need in fact after the first week when I occasionally sat in on lessons because I was curious I've had nothing to do with my year 9 or 12 apart from providing snacks and admiring work done and bite my tongue if it's not to a high enough standard!

@CuckooCuckooClock with respect how will their tutor know how they are doing if it’s not a requirement to submit their work?

We’re told by school that no feedback/ marking/ acknowledgement of work is ‘policy’ and that mental health is priority.

DS broke down in tears for over an hour yesterday saying he’d rather die than carry on like this. We have no structure or support coming from school. I’ve contacted school. How is mental health a priority?

Structure, contact with teachers and support is all necessary for good mental health, surely.

Structure, contact with teachers and support is all necessary for good mental health, surely

Of course it is.

I'd go so far to say that it's cruel of schools to offer very little and bang on about mental health.

"no feedback/ marking/ acknowledgement of work is ‘policy’ and that mental health is priority"

but surely doing work which is not marked or acknowledged would not be good for mental health. That doesn't make sense.

sunshine with respect, send some work to the teachers and ask for it to be assessed.
Probably schools are trying not to put pressure on students who cannot complete the work. That’s what they mean by putting mental health first.
You can ask teachers directly if they would assess a piece of completed work and give feedback. Take some initiative.

Probably schools are trying not to put pressure on students who cannot complete the work

Cannot complete it why? Lack of equipment, fine. Lack of understanding then it needs to be explained. Lack of motivation, then why should kids who do the work be penalised?

DDs school have told us they will phone or email if she's not up to date. We've heard nothing so assume she must be. I know some of her friends parents have been contacted so the school seem to be doing what they say.

Email head of year and check if there are any concerns

@puffinkoala
Hit send next time!! Whilst we cannot change the general guidance there is so much I can do for students who may need extra help.

Selfishly I'm obviously going to spend time with my own family at the moment which means I dont necessarily chase up all the students/parents when work isn't being done. I don't work late in the evening like I used to because it's easy not to - I dont mind admitting that, my kids need me as well.

Your child might be on my list but I might not get around to that until next week. Whereas a direct email to me will usually have a response within the same say.

Not every school/teacher will be the same but I would encourage anyone to contact their schools/teachers if they're not happy with set work or want to check.

For every frustrated parent on here moaning about the quality of work received I have 2 or 3 kids I'm frustrated with for not engaging with what I have set.

Send an email today! Even if you just check in or ask for an overview of what they should be doing.

Mine are Y9 and Y12, they’re busy on their laptops in the day whilst I am busy working on mine. The school are emailing weekly lesson plans so I am checking they know what they’re doing and need to submit. I feel like I am keeping an eye on the quantity of work and am hoping that the teachers are monitoring the quality. I’ve had calls from both of their firm tutors today, they call every couple of weeks, doesn’t normally fall on the same day though. They both said no concern their end and agreed that no news is good news.

State school in the US here. I can log into Powerschool to see what's done, what's missing, and what marks they've got. If they fall behind I get an email from their personal tutor. I also got a call from the personal tutor last week for us to all talk through what needed to be done.

DH and I both work full time so we rely heavily on those mechanisms. We sat with DS this weekend and helped him make a list of what was left to do, prioritise the list, and helped him with some practical stuff.

It's the last week of school here this week, so there's been a big push to get the required work all done.

The teachers have worked so hard since school went online early March. They deserve a break and I'm glad school is finally finishing for the summer.