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.

I'd like to offer my perspective as a teacher. As mentioned above my year 5 daughter has had no direct contact from her teacher. Just messages over teams. No work marked. I get it. As a secondary teacher I've emailed parents and my form weekly. We were asked to ring all our form. This was at a time when I had a death in the family followed closely by a parent being taken to hospital . They came home on Monday after 2 weeks. I have been in no frame of mind to speak to my pupils or their parents as this has been a dark time for me. I have just about managed to prepare lessons. Thankfully another teacher did this for me.

What will be good going forward, is that now we have primary children back for 'some' time - we're all assuming full time all term, but who knows - it will give us chance to teach them how to use the online teaching resource we've been given access to. Email addresses, how to get onto a Teams call for example. Every school has now been given access to one of the platforms. Not many of us know how to use them properly, and it's been impossible to teach primary aged children to use them remotely.

I'm actually not sure what schools have been doing who haven't been doing videos or specific online learning. Genuinely. It's been ages. We had ours up and running with teething problems after Easter, and then properly slick-ly running after half term. We are yet to use Teams with children.

But I don't want to speak to children individually on the phone. At all. Most of the parents I've spoken to have been monosyllabic, at least one sounded completely stoned. The children are worse. It's awkward and weird - would be far better in small Teams meeting groups, or pairs or something.

Year 6, had 1 week back at school in June otherwise no contact whatsoever .

Most teachers have been told to prioritise calling families of vulnerable children/ vulnerable families. I used to do this to families in my tutor group even before lock down and could easily take an hour a call; so now it’s much longer. Lots of schools have opening up to most primary years groups now so your children’s teacher may be teaching a bubble all day!!’

But agreed no contact since March is not good enough.

2 phone calls and 2 zoom meetings.

@ohthegoats

What will be good going forward, is that now we have primary children back for 'some' time - we're all assuming full time all term, but who knows - it will give us chance to teach them how to use the online teaching resource we've been given access to. Email addresses, how to get onto a Teams call for example. Every school has now been given access to one of the platforms. Not many of us know how to use them properly, and it's been impossible to teach primary aged children to use them remotely.

I'm actually not sure what schools have been doing who haven't been doing videos or specific online learning. Genuinely. It's been ages. We had ours up and running with teething problems after Easter, and then properly slick-ly running after half term. We are yet to use Teams with children.

This is really interesting to read. Are you getting high levels of engagement with the kids online?

I just can’t imagine this working at all with DC’s school. Most kids don’t have devices (or if they do, the ratio of devices to people in the household is pretty tight). Even DS, the token middle class child in his class, spent most of lockdown only able to go online either on my work laptop (ie if I wasn’t already using it for my, more important, work) or on my cracked mobile which keeps bleating about having little memory left so can’t cope with adding extra apps etc. Not to mention the crap WiFi connection that I just didn’t (still don’t) have the time or wherewithal to address on top of everything else.

We’ve managed to ensure he joins his weekly boys brigade zoom meeting, and he’s certainly had a lovely and nurturing lockdown (also lots of crap TV and squabbling with his baby sister), but I’m super relieved school haven’t expected him to engage in online classes etc because I just wouldn’t have been able to facilitate that, in spite of placing a high value on education and therefore supposedly prioritising this sort of thing.

I think most reasonable people would expect vulnerable children to be prioritised, and I also never expected online video lessons or anything like that. I just got on with trying to home school like I'm sure we all have. As said previously I wasn't even really asking about online lessons, marking etc..just, have you had any contact from school to see how things are?

I think it's a bit sad for the children to be honest all of us that have said no, none.

Year 4. Phone call every 2 weeks. Book swaps in school playground (pick up reading books and new exercise books) 3 times. Electronic feedback on assignments since half term. Replies to emails.

Weekly zoom lesson for each year and weekly whole school assembly. Class blog pages for photos of work. New work each week that is marked. A few videos. Phone calls/emails if they don't hear from you.

I think they've been excellent on the whole. Especially since they only had three laptops with cameras for the whole school (450 kids)!

Year 4. 3 phone calls but all within a 4 weeks period. Also get the generic ‘well done’ to any work submitted.

The school has tried, but I think this whole thing has just gone on for too long now. With zero face to face contact, all motivation has gone on all sides. With the best intentions, we’re working full time, the teachers are in school working full time, and the home schooling in the middle of it all has ground to a halt.

One phone call from class teacher since lockdown began. I could have buried them under the patio for all they cared. No one has asked to speak to them at all and there has been no video calling. We haven't been asked to send work in and there has been no response to any emails I've sent.

A friend's school are now asking for proof of life videos each week where they child has to hold up a certain piece of work and say a few words. To be honest it all sounds very sensible.

OP have you made any attempt to contact your dc's teacher or requested a phone call?

@Hyggefun what’s a proof of life video? Are they seriously requiring children to hold up a piece of this weeks work in a photo to prove they are still alive?

One 10 minute phone call and one 30 minute class Zoom call. These were both in same week (about 2 weeks ago).

We have a generic year group email address for work queries.

Pretty shit really - although I know others in class have had way more contact. Obviously perceived need comes into it, but you'd think they could manage to call a bit more than once in what, 15 weeks?

I’m a teacher so not teacher bashing as I know how hard many will have worked but I’m petty disgusted by my sons primary. Not one single call or email or personal message since lockdown began. Very poor worksheets put on seesaw with no feedback when emailed in. I’m so sorry for my son who has worked incredibly hard over lockdown (I’ve set my own work) with no contact from his school at all.

I have been pretty disappointed in our state primary school until I read this! We have had fairly regular calls and online work set. YR 2 child wasn't exactly forthcoming but I appreciated the sentiment. Juniors have had 1 group zoom call.

No expectation to do the work but I did upload a piece to twitter and teacher commented.

What I am finding disappointing is the attitude of the executive head, not the individual teachers. He appears to have take a computer says no attitude to the situation and done as little as possible. Poor example to set.

A newsletter basically told the parents to leave the school alone in June. Not impressed with him. I think many parents will withdraw their goodwill to an extent after this.

I don't get the need to call parents for chats although I seem to be in the minority here. Isn't teacher time better spent teaching and marking? Doesn't that constitute better contact? Isn't it better to contact teachers directly with questions about work if you have them?

To be honest it's just PR isn't it? You wouldn't expect your doctor to phone you up for a chat in lockdown unless there was a bit of history, and if a parent is having financial, emotional and / or mental health issues, or bereavement, I'm not sure I'd know what to say or how to help. There are better people to talk to who would be able to signpost you to better services. And I'm not convinced young children get a lot out of a phone call.

And in terms of tracking work done, if you're not able to do the work with your children because you're already working full time, are you really going to appreciate a phone call to point this out, adding to the stress? Of course it seems like a great idea when it seems like everyone else's teacher is ringing people up but yours. But if you were in charge, would that really be what you wanted your staff to do for a large chunk of every day?

I don't get the need to call parents for chats although I seem to be in the minority here

Well they talk to the children too don't they? I think it's part of pastoral care and safe guarding.

@Barbie222

It’s not just for a random ‘chat’ in most cases. It’s to check they are ok, to check they are being fed, some students live in over crowded homes, in women refuges, with abusive parents, parents with mental health issues.

Some children are young carers and look after a parent.

On the flip side sometimes the parents/carers need support with their children’s behavioural issues, mental health issues, eating disorders. I used to call a foster Carer every week for 5 years and she would rant/cry/ask for help/support.

Gosh I could go on!!!

The call wasn’t to me it was to ds

We didn’t have marking, just an email a week so for ds the two calls / cards reminded him school was there. It did perk him up to speak to his teacher, he just talked about a story or something.

They stopped and we’ve been ok, just completely doing our own work now using Oak Academy. He seems to be ok but that contact was useful to him. Although not the end of the world without it.

Afaik from class WhatsApp everyone got a call rather than vulnerable dc

Child aged 11yrs.

No personal contact, or zoom etc.

A weekly email with a list of schoolwork tasks.

No requirement to submit work for marking. Parents are expected to supervise and mark it.
No checks that schoolwork has been completed or not.

Seems that completing schoolwork is entirely discretionary. I gather from other parents that their children didn’t do any schoolwork.

School has been finished for 2 weeks now, so not expecting any more contact until September.

Feels a bit shit to be honest. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Absolutely, and I agree about the need to safeguard vulnerable children, but are we all saying we're that vulnerable here? Like I said, there's only so many hours in the day and I'm guessing most people here weren't looking forward to a call that was basically just checking for abuse!