How much contact has your primary school aged child had with their teacher?

[georgedawes]

Please can you tell me how much contact your primary school aged child has had with their teacher since March. I'm specifically asking for kids not yet back in school and not about emails with work set etc, but actual direct contact (telephone, zoom etc etc) with their teacher.

Year 4, one phonecall a week. Plus there is a class email address so if the children email in they will get an answer. The teachers also do a YouTube shout out video each week talking about the work.

Overall the school is doing well.

My sons teacher has left some video messages for the class on the website they use for setting work. Other than that, there have been no phone calls or zoom meetings. The work was being looked at by his teacher, but he is now teaching his own bubble, so different teachers give feedback everyday via the website.

@waterandtea if you’re really concerned about privilege and disadvantaged children maybe don’t send your kids to private school! (As they are a leading cause of educational disadvantage, reinforcing and strengthening the gap in attainment, HTH)

Year 4. One call from the school, not the teacher and to the parent not ds. Last week a zoom meeting for his new class with their new teacher for next year. Work has been set via the school website.

@waterandtea i feel the same. we chose independent for better SENDs support and extracurricular stuff, but now suddenly the difference between many state and many independent schools is wether kids get an education at all. You shouldn’t have to pay for the basic right to an education (although parents of SENDs kids often had to do that anyway)

Um, quite pleased that parents who choose private school are finally seeing how unfair this choice is, rather surprised they didn’t see it before tbh!

None. (Yr2 and Yr4)
No work to submit either.

Their teachers have been teaching other year groups since half term. We get one email a week with a few bits of work on... 2-3hrs worth a week. The school has been doing a lot for vunerable families and Keyworker children. But yrs 2-5 not in those categories have been pretty much abandoned.

Several phone calls from headteacher and class teachers. They have responded to every email and give feedback on every piece of work we have submitted. Lots of YouTube of mini lessons and story reading. They’ve been fantastic.
I’m surprised some pp say they have had no feedback on work. They’ve submitted. I’ve given feedback on every single piece of work and responded to every single email. I’ve had to work into the night every evening and all weekend to do this.
I also have shitloads of planning for September to do that I am now massively behind on so will need to continue this work pattern through the summer.
I’m absolutely exhausted trying to do all this and look after my own small children.
Everyday I have an inbox full of complaints. With varying levels of distress and anger. Some from parents whose children have not contacted me at all. Have not submitted any work or asked for any help. The first I hear from them is a tirade about how crap I am.
Please remember that your children’s teachers are people too and are struggling too. Everyone is trying their best in difficult circumstances. Please be kind. Don’t be the person who tips someone else over the edge. Please.

@Percypinkpink we chose private because SENDs provision is a disgrace in our local schools. No everybody is in the same situation SENDs parents have been for years. hopefully things will change

Btw, this is NOT the teachers fault . how is one teacher with 30+ kids and no financial support supposed to put in full dyslexia support, not to mention more complex support? impossible!

We have a pre schooler (so not even of compulsory school age) and have had phone calls from the staff and lovely email responses when sending in photos or emails of what they has been up to.

Yr12 has also been very supported by some amazing teachers but had one teacher who has gone AWOL.

DS was in P3. He got twice daily emails to the whole class (9am setting the days 3 work tasks and one at “home time” Thanking everyone for their work), plus personal replies to any emails from individual pupils. Also a weekly email from the DHT with an “assembly” type PowerPoint. I know other teachers at DS’s school for older years have been doing Teams calls and one of the P1 teachers made videos for her class so they didn’t need to have an adult read the email for them.

Nothing, y5.
Just likes on some Seesaw work.
It’s so gutting as he loved this teacher.

Thanks for all the answers, such variation!

To be clear I didn't start this thread to bash teachers, and I wasn't really asking about work set either, although of course the conversation evolves! It's always going to be hard to get the balance right with work, and teaching other year groups must be hard. I suspect some parents would ask for more work at our school (affluent area) and others would say it is too much: I have every sympathy with schools in this situation hence I didn't really focus on this. It was whether they'd spoken to you or the kids since March, which is a different question and much less subjective.

To the poster who said teachers are damned if they do and damned if they don't - I think you're replying to a question I didn't ask. This is about contact - small, non-work related contact. Noone on this thread has complained about the school reaching out too much, many of us have expressed disappointment that we've had no contact at all.

Also to the teachers who have posted on this thread and are run ragged - you sound like you are doing a sterling job and it's not a dig at you. I'm just shocked we've had not one phone call in nearly 4 months to say hello!

Year 3. ZERO.

Y6 nothing

Y1 child no contact whatsoever. No set work just lots of links to online learning resources. We get our standard weekly newsletter and that's it.

2 or 3 phone calls. Weekly zoom in the last month. They can submit 2/3 pieces of work through google classroom that is marked and they get personal feedback.

Year 6

None, I'm not even convinced she looked at any worked she set and DS did as the response came back 'well done' or 'good work' within seconds of the work being submitted.

And yes I sent him back as soon as he could. I emailed the school 4 weeks ago for confirmation of info sent to his High School. I'm still waiting for an acknowledgement of the email, let alone a response. Phoned High School left a message they rung back the next day.

None whatsoever 😢

Zero. Year 6 (can’t be accommodated due to space/lack of teachers)

I’m not impressed.

It’s hard to know how this will ever be justified isn’t it? The differences?

The public enquiry is going to be interesting.

I think part of the problem is that for the last few years all schools have actively marketed themselves on having an inclusive ethos with high academic expectations - caring, nurturing etc. What you read on the website and see at open evenings has just not happend (in a few not all schools) during this crisis. I am an FE teacher and have taught a full timetable on teams throughout. My daughter is in secondary school (yr8) and has had very little contact - she is fine but I do feel let down. The school seems to have such high expectations of her, put her under a lot of pressure to get 'good grades' then in a time of crisis - nothing.

No Zoom on safeguarding grounds. No phone calls (not sure why) but parents can call headteacher/managers anytime for support. They are having a visit to school to meet their teacher for next year.