So apparently all the state schools could have had interactive lessons

[chopc]

As per GW today all were given access to a Microsoft Teams/ Google classrooms and could have had interactive teaching like the private schools. Not sure if he mentioned anything about the safeguarding concerns of zoom which miraculously have been overcome recently ...........just sayin

Did some teachers say they have been instructed by their SLT not to give interactive lessons or mark homework etc?

Sorry I know you must be bored of these threads but couldn't help myself

brakethree - you don’t seem to understand much about the obligations of teachers in state education. Try reading Keeping Children Safe in Education. They have obligations extending way beyond pure “education.”
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/835733/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2019.pdf
And no, a school is not judged as having done its job if it lets other services know, knows they are not dealing adequately with it, but does not keep pushing for action itself.

Some schools have a lot more staff than others too. Non teaching SLT and two or three classes per year versus small schools where the head sometimes teaches means completely different amounts of time available

[quote commentatorz]@echt I did discuss with my cousin who is also a teacher, but she advised me not to bring it up with the school. She said that they would likely not do anything about it but would bear a grudge- and would likely cause issues for my boy when school resumes.[/quote]
That's just bollocks, frankly.

She's a piss poor teacher in a piss poor school if that's her advice. Schools don't bear grudges against kids if a parent raises an issue.

@echt I did discuss with my cousin who is also a teacher, but she advised me not to bring it up with the school. She said that they would likely not do anything about it but would bear a grudge- and would likely cause issues for my boy when school resumes

I call bullshit on this. So you do nothing because..... your "teacher" cousin....likely...likely..

Yeah right.

Fucking hell who cares - it’s too late to go back and change it now - what’s the point in dwelling on it and wishing things were done differently? Move on

I don't agree Kapten the situation with the schools has been nothing short of a disaster. There needs to be a review and a robust planning document put in place for next time, there will be a next time and there may even be a second wave of lockdown.

Unfortunately there seems to have been too many schools not doing enough and then blaming something/someone else. The government are not to blame for all of this because some schools seem to realise they had to do their jobs and offered the best they could. Surely the best way forward would be to look at the leaders that did their job and use them to put together guidelines for those that, for whatever, reason couldn't. Certainly more centralised resources are needed, having all these teachers 'preparing resources' is an outrageous waste of time and money.

Actually what hellsbells99 said....

Yes, why haven't the government used TV, so children can access their lessons?

As a disclaimer, I've no idea how much that would cost to be fair...
Or any idea how that would work?

Would it be totally unworkable?

BBC Bitesize and Oak Academy are on TV?

Although for Primary children a Parent or other support person would also be needed at home to support with these resources.

In an ideal world yes ThyphoidMary2020.

It's very difficult for working parents including teachers to provide their child with much 1:1 support though.

That's what people are so stressed about.

I think it is obvious there should have been a clear distinction made for lockdown education between Primary and Secondary.

For Primaries there is clearly a childcare issue for working parents but a few months less primary schooling is not a disaster so long as the children get enough outdoor playtime and adult interaction.

For Secondaries every week lost, indeed every day lost, is a significant loss.

A pp poo-pooed the embarrassing difference between private and state secondary provision during covid, shouting how private education is wrong. But that misses the point that the issue right now is an emergency one on covid and lockdown education - emergency - and not an appropriate moment nor is there the time for perfecting idealistic visions. England is capitalist not communist.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/27/private-schools-offer-state-pupils-summer-catch-up-sessions/ Private school associations offers to provide Summer school catch up to their local communities and this has apparently been refused by the gov’t.

Are you referring to me fortmums?

I assume not as I have not posted anything criticising private education. I did post about the dreadful damage that 10 years of coalition/Tory governments have done to the state education system though.

Just in case these key facts have passed you by... the govt suspended the curriculum in March and has, as yet, given no plans for what that will mean come Sept and beyond including for years due to puplic exams. Nor did they provide schools with guidance about what they should be providing educationwise during lockdown.

They have given no additional funds to schools to support them during the pandemic (unless the school has an outbreak of covid then they get a small sum for additional cleaning). They promised laptops for Y10s who don't have them which largely never materialised. They publicised grants to schools for MS Teams but many applications were refused.

They did instruct schools to coordinate the FSM voucher scheme, which was a mess, and took up huge amounts of time.

I think it's obvious that the govt should have provided all schools with guidance and funds to address the emergency in state education, and most of us who care about state education have been saying that for years.

It would be worth starting a separate post about this article tbh. It's akin to the govt ignoring offers from organisations to make masks and ventilators in spring.

Teacher here. I have a laptop, one. It's my own, not from work. I also have three children, one in Sixth Form, one Year 9, one Year 1. Which of us get to use the laptop for these live lessons? If me, what does my infant-school aged child do in the meantime? Does it matter that my older children fall behind their contemporaries?

I am SO desperate to go back to work properly. This whole situation fills me with despair.

@brakethree yes there needs to be a robust review. But the review needs to be done about the government's actions during the lockdown.

Don't let them fool you into passing the buck to schools when their guidance and instructions have been erratic, incoherent and just generally a mess.

Gov may have suspended the curriculum......but schools have interpreted that very differently.

Some said at the start that there would be no work sent home. Some said they would send some but not follow it up or mark it and everything was optional so as not to cause stress to struggling families. Some said they would cover the curriculum, follow up missed work and aim to do as close as poss to what would normally happen.

Of course there had to be flexibility from gov because they hadn’t provided the resources to insist on anything. Now they will say the curriculum was suspended and it was up to schools to decide what to do....so all come back is on schools, not gov. To a large extent that is passing the buck. To some extent, given 14 weeks to adapt, schools need to take some responsibility. Yes they faced significant constraints, but some managed to continue curriculum coverage for those willing to engage and some found ways to help some of those engage that struggled due to resources or motivation.

Without doubt, some Heads have been more resourceful with what they have, than others have been. Some have been more motivated to get children closer to where they would have been regardless of circumstances, whilst others have bowed to the constraints more quickly and in a more long term way. Some have constantly looked for new ways to do things and adapted (often causing huge hard work for staff) while others set an approach at the start and have barely changed it.

I don’t think it’s about private vs state. It’s been about dynamic vs non-dynamic.

And coming back to the teacher with 1 laptop and 3 kids - very common. It’s why so many schools delivered recorded lessons rather than live only or live, whilst recording. Recorded lessons gave the students teacher giving verbal explanation, the chance for interaction if delivered live, plus flexibility for those working with limited IT in their homes. Recorded live let’s even those watching later see some Q and A even if they aren’t asking themselves. No one model best and depends on age of kids. Lots of secondaries did 1 live/recorded per week, plus rest was work set remotely. It didn’t need to be live all the time.

If a teacher taught 6 or 7 classes at secondary, delivering 7 recorded or live lessons might take about 5 hours. The planning and resource making is longer than usual, but there’s still time for that, plus setting the rest of the remote work, marking, following up on missed work and pastoral issues, doing required admin, meetings etc etc. Much of it can be done flexibly around own families/in evening if needed like any other worker who is at home with children. Some schools posted out work to those without internet/IT rather than saying it meant no one could have recorded lessons. Some did some hand delivering. With all of it, it was never possible to for e ever family or child to engage but the majority in most places wanted to and engaged more when there was more interaction.

Yes, why haven't the government used TV, so children can access their lessons?

BBC bitesize is on TV via the red button.

What's your point WombatChocolate?

That all schools are different and that they've done the best they can with no guidance or support from the government?

I think that's a fair assessment of rhe situation yes.

But really, how many teachers actually didn’t have a computer of some sort at home or internet access?

As a tech based family we do have lots of devices at home each.

But many of our staff have a phone only as their tech. They're just not interested in having more tech at home.

Many have one laptop or tablet for the family. But then there are 4 or 5 of them in a family needing to use it for work and home learning purposes. Who gets priority to access - a teacher doing a live lesson, the other parent trying to complete a time restricted business transaction, the teenager trying to do a gcse live lesson, the y6 trying to do a live transition session or the youngster trying to complete their English and Maths?

That's what many people have to deal with daily, even without the constraints of live lessons.

My school (the one my older children attend and where I work) has been spectacular in terms of delivering work and support. It's a smallish state secondary, just out of deficit, with a high proportion of pupil premium students.
As soon as lockdown started, work was uploaded to our online platform and about three weeks later, live lessons started on Teams. The lessons are attended by two teachers - one to present and one to monitor and answer questions in the chat. They are also recorded for later if need be.
We have called every family in school at least three times for welfare purposes and made it clear from the beginning that the work was there if the children felt able to complete it, but that there was no pressure and that the mental health of students and their families was more important.
We have delivered work packs to students who struggle with internet or computer access and food parcels to struggling families. We've also been encouraged to complete CPD if we wish.
I just wanted to post to say that it could have been done. All schools have had the same shocking lack of government guidance but a lot of it has been achieved by sharing best practice online and by practitioners who are very internet-savvy. I feel sorry for the heads, teachers and staff who have been left to flounder alone if they don't have those skills.

There is just no way we could have offered that. Two teachers per live lesson?
Almost all our staff are ft in school with classes. We are primary and have always had a large number of KW children. Our bubbles have been full for the past few weeks before we could even begin to invite any other years back.

I think this is what a lot of MNetters don't realise - schools vary massively. We don't have spare staff to produce lots of live teaching as most are in school in classes all day. Then not everyone - pupils or staff - have the tech needed. Just because as a family you do, the schools have to look at a solution that's best for the whole community not just the most well off/tech minded families.

Just to let you know some private schools have been bloody shocking using technology. The teachers are my DS school are all a it older and while they have the tech they are bloody clueless it's embarrassing, like watching elderly parents trying to text!! In the newsletter before lockdown the head even said once we finger out how to work this " new fangled technology " it's a laptop and google meet ffs.

Anyhow just wanted to say my friends state school has been on it and fab from day one and has a really young dynamic head teacher and another friends state secondary has been awful, older headteacher, so my theory is depends on the attitude and general age of the teachers.

As to whether they embraced or ignored the changes.

So I do really think regardless of state or private it's down to the head teachers attitude to technology.

We have, however, I think provided a very good package of HL - it just doesn't involve live lessons.
I won't post it all here again as I've posted on several threads already but it's fair to say that if our families won't to be busy and keep up learning from home they've had more than enough to keep them going, and in a number of formats, as well as many opportunities for communication between parents, pupils and staff.

I completely agree - there is no one-size solution and every school varies enormously in terms of cohort, staff and what they can do. I think the commonality is that they've tried to do what they can and what works for their children and their set-up.

so my theory is depends on the attitude and general age of the teachers.
Which makes you sound quite bigoted. It's nothing to do with age.

Avery.....not really to your last point.

I agree that government did not provide clear guidance. It was open ended and schools had to interpret it. To some degree this was all they could do, but I think a minimum expectation or provision required would have helped, although it would have been hard or impossible to hold schools to account over it.

The lack of clear guidance and onus on schools doesn’t autonstivLly translate Avery, to all schools did their best unfortunately. I think we have to look at whether they were flexible and allowed their provision to evolve as they became more aware of what lockdown meant, as more info became available about methods that could be used and different ways to engage students.

So my big Q is about whether leaders were flexible and adjusted or just stick with their plan of 23 March? Even with resource constraints on both teachers and students and motivation constraints from many families, some schools were more agile and determined and some seemed to accept rather easily that there was loads that couldn’t be done or weren’t really willing to consider and adjust as different possibilities became evident. Some barriers might be insurmountable but some can be at least partly combatted if you have that mindset. Mindset of school leaders is very important...some of it really does come down to ‘can do’ or ‘can’t do’ attitudes....not everything of course, but some of it.