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.

It’s hard to know how this will ever be justified isn’t it? The differences? The public enquiry is going to be interesting.
The differences are stark. Surely the DfE/Ofsed should be auditing this and highlighting best practice as guidance?

Wentaway you have touched on something that I feel is an issue at our school too. It's quite high attaining with a huge emphasis on SATS. I know when they return in Sep they will put huge pressure on the current yr5s to do well.

Write to your schools and write to your MP. The difference between our school and a school 5 minutes down the road is crazy - we have actually been using the online daily lessons set by one of the schools on a daily blog as it is so much better than the list of suggested websites we get from ours.
Still can't understand how they haven't phoned my child once in all this time 😔

None

georgedawes and wentaway this is why parents as well as teachers need to push back on the idea that it is children who will need to 'catch up' when they return to school.

No. It's the curriculum and expectations of the children that need to scale down to reflect these months out of regular schooling.

Provision between schools has been very different. Parent/carers ability to support their children at home has been very different. Heck, children's personalities and home circumstances are all different.

We need to support teachers to push back the SATS and other pressures that are driven by central government. How, I'm not sure but I feel very certain that more damage and disadvantage will be caused if we don't.

"It's the curriculum and expectations of the children that need to scale down to reflect these months out of regular schooling."

I'll just translate that: we want to level down everyone's expectations and aspirations to the lowest common denominator.

I think this is becoming a bit of an echo chamber. More parents in our survey were happier with the "email contact when we initiate it" than "weekly call". As a parent, I'd rather not be called unless there's a problem tbh, and the Y1 children generally are monosyllabic on the phone as you might expect. But I'm in ks1, at secondary my son has had a few calls.

I agree with Commentator

Plus it would further widen the gap between paying and state

Y3. No direct contact to DS, but two phone calls to me (I think one in May and one in June) to see how he was doing.

For me, it’s been the right amount (not felt totally cut adrift, not felt harassed - would definitely not have welcomed high levels of contact, I’ve had enough else to juggle). Possibly worth mentioning DS hasn’t felt at all warmly towards this teacher though, and while with my adult perspective I can see where she’s coming from, I can also see why he feels as he does; I might feel quite sad on his behalf if he was quite attached to her, as he has been with previous teachers.

You didn’t ask this, but you do mention your school as being in quite an affluent area and ours emphatically is not. I imagine there are lots of children in his class who the school are very worried about, and if my safe, fed, cherished and frankly loving his unschooled life DS is being a bit neglected in favour of them I’ve got no issue with that.

Yes 4&5.
Work set but no encouragement to actually do it. If you send a pic of it and send it in DC usually get a 'Well done". That's it.

Yrs not yes!

2 phone calls home. Weekly zoom assemblies where she can talk to her classmates and her teachers. She's Year 2 at a state lower school. Her school have been utterly wonderful during this whole thing.

2 x 30 min video calls a day from class teacher, independent school, but if they can manage why not everyone else, DD is in year 1

One phone call per child. One letter per child from teacher (not personalised, a form letter printed off 30 times and sent to each member of the class with a couple of photos and an update about "lockdown life" - "I've been tending my allotment" etc)

3 website addresses posted each Monday to constitute "home learning".

School assembly (no interaction, pre-recorded by head) every other Friday.

Kids are year 1 and year 3 in England.

Not sure what is meant by an echo chamber, and I didn't specify it had to be a phone call either Barbie. I said direct contact. Not had emails either except with work.

Reception - during the time she was off school, the teacher made a daily video for the school website and rang us five times.

Year 4 - we had three phone calls and they have been doing weekly zoom calls in small groups for the past 6 weeks. I've emailed a couple of times for help with things and the teacher has got back to me the same day both times.

I've been really pleased with school throughout all this.

Year 4 here and no direct contact at all.

@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.

Zilch.

One 30 minute Teams meeting to say goodbye to teacher. No phone call. A written end of year report. For juniors. For infants, a online zoom type meeting to meet new teacher.

Year 5 . None.

None from my child with her school. Few comments on stuff we put on Google classroom.

I'm a teacher, and none with most of my class - I've had email contact with some via their parents email address (but clearly the child typing), but about work (either responding to work they've sent to me, or about differentiated work I've sent to them). I've also spoken to a few on the phone, but for specific reasons. That's been standard in our school. We're not allowed to zoom, and any phone calls with children have been pointless - they just mumble or give monosyllabic answers. Email is different, they aren't shy about that.

Y4, a phone call for the last three weeks or so that lasts about a minute tops and two 40 minute google meets with the whole class.

Should add that for my lot, engagement with online learning (3 video lessons a day that we make ourselves, workbooks to collect that the lessons are planned around - we also provide marking videos - email address for direct contact, take photos of work and I'll mark it), has been really low. REALLY low. That's the demographic of my school though.

Two children at primary, absolutely no contact in the manner you describe. None. Not a solitary minute.

I have two DC in year 5 and 2. We have had no contact with class teachers other than on the class forum where work is set and (generic 'well done' type) feedback is given.