Homeschooling if locked down

[Lemons1571]

Has anyone heard from primary schools how homeschooling next year will work in practice, with all parents also back to work? Presumably schools have to plan for the 7 days / 2 weeks that children will have to isolate every so often.

I am praying that they come up with something that kids can attempt independently, and does not rely on a working parent to try and shoehorn into a busy day. With the best of intentions, we wouldn’t get it done. Or alternatively, if both parents work full time, that the kids can still go to school.

We have somehow got through to now with ft work and home school, though failed pretty badly since half term. Come September we have no hope!

Anyone else worried about this?

I mean the best plan would be to declare that the first period of isolation will be added on to the end of term in July next year and therefore that no work will need to be set for that period, but I doubt teachers unions would be on board with such a proposal.

Sorry, why are they isolating for 2 weeks every so often? Presumably if someone in their bubble tests positive, they will be tested themselves?

And if there was a need for isolation, why on earth would they be allowed back in school? Maybe I'm missing something.
As all teachers will be back full time, I would imagine schools will give you links to something generic like Oak Academy, which plans to have a year's worth of lessons up by September, so it should be relatively easy to find stuff that fits in with what the class would be doing.

As far as I’m aware, according to Whitty if someone tests positive in your bubble but you’re symptomless you have to isolate for 2 weeks. You can’t just get a test without having symptoms and crack on if it’s negative?

And if there was a need for isolation, why on earth would they be allowed back in school? Maybe I'm missing something

Fair point.

God knows how parents who are wfh 9-6 are going to fit oak academy in. I find primary school kids are just not able to self manage it all. I’m stuck wfh in a demanding job. And everyone ends up in tears!

I agree, it is a nightmare. The trouble is, for most at primary age apart from maybe Y5 and 6, if it's something easy enough to crack on with completely independently, it is probably fairly worthless educationally

I suspect the guidelines will have been altered before September, I wouldn’t worry about this.

It may be 2 positives grr. But yes if you or dc get cough etc you have to be off till negative test to that could be several days.
Often too a family come dipown with.thinhs one after other so say
Dc1 cough day 1 everyone home
Day 2 negative everyone home
Day 3 back to school and work
Day 4 dc2 cough everyone home test
Day 5 waitinv for test
Day 6 negative and repeat.

@bluesapphirestars

I suspect the guidelines will have been altered before September, I wouldn’t worry about this.

I agree with this, take a summer off worrying about what can't be changed or trying to know the future, the past months must have taught us all that there's no point in guessing what might happenn

From a secondary school POV (actually I know it's only my dept that have done this is far at my school) we've been adapting work so that all of the lessons can be done from home and there are appropriate resources that can be accessed. That way if we lockdown or particular people are having to stay at home for whatever reason then we can just put the relevant work online or post the paper pack.

It was a worthwhile task because every so often we are asked for work for Student A who has broken both legs and can't come to school or similar and the work we've sent home is OK but not great as it's not been specially adapted so we can use these resources for that in future too.

It is what worries me and I have emailed the school for a response. We have no “teaching” since 20 March and the government guidance says that next year remote learning should be provided so hopefully it will be an improvement on what we had this year but I think it’s a big issue for primary schools like ours who offered nothing in the initial lockdown as they do not have the learning about what works that other schools have.

Genius idea OP, family should be isolating for 2 weeks but the kids should still be allowed to go to school and potentially put others at risk because both parents work full time 😂

I was thinking more of a local lockdown in my area. Presumably kids of key workers will go to school then? And kids with one or zero keyworker parents will again be excluded?

Our school has said they have contingency for bubble or local lockdown but haven’t said what that is. Interestingly they also have a contingency plan for if the guidance returns to as it was in June and have sourced alternative venues. Not sure if it has been a requirement for every school to do that?

Yes key worker only access in local lockdowns but the government has said that

• remote education should be provided
• this should be focused on the curriculum
• it should not rely on independent research tasks on the internet
• feedback should be given

There is a whole section in the guidance for reopening schools but basically no if they shut again even in a local area it’s not ok to say oh well all too hard see you when it’s over!

We’ll do the same as in the last closure I suppose, and will translate our planning into online work packs. I hope workplaces will be flexible for parents who have to suddenly take time off work if schools do need to close for any period of time. I actually feel less worried this time round. As teachers the first closure was a shock and we only had a few days to cobble together some work, but as it went on we got better at refining what was sent out to families and how we kept in contact. I actually don’t think it would be all that difficult to slip back into that mindset next time round.

I can see it being an absolute pigging nightmare between schools having to isolate bubbles and potentially places of work having to isolate workers too

If you have to isolate, the whole family has to isolate, untill you all have negative tests, keyworker kids or not

My DD's primary has said they will be setting work on Google Classroom. Never used it before so not sure how easy it would be for primary children to access without help.

Wee ones can't access alone. Believe me I have been trying to teach via Google Classroom since 23 March.

No child can access learning alone. That’s why we have schools in the first place. Teachers don’t just tell children what to do then let them get on with it, we observe what they’re doing and coach them through all their errors and misconceptions. It’s why distance learning doesn’t really work and is nowhere near as effective as classroom teaching.

Gov says that if there’s another lockdown we have to provide distance learning but it’s never going to be a substitute for what happens in the classroom.

Yes schools are looking at how best to continue education at home if a child or a class must isolate. As you can Imagine, it's extremely difficult indeed.

The younger the child the harder it is to give them anything independent to do.

Children are more motivated to write at school than at home. Mainly as that's where they've always written things. I've noticed a huge number of younger primary children have not been motivated to write at home.

I know my school are thinking about how they'll continue work. It's an sen school though and the reality is that it's very hard indeed.

If work books were being done in school they could go home, but few use work books and children get bored.

Online programmes maybe the best solution. To be honest, for younger children the basic skills of reading and spelling, perhaps handwriting and then some more easily completed maths, will be key.

We've been working hard to get every family accessing TEAMS before we finish for the summer and we'll carry on running TEAMS chats and lessons over the summer so that hopefully if we need to isolate for two weeks we can run a full school day this way.

Unfortunately it'll probably still need a degree of parental help and supervision.... I think that's unavoidable.

I'm in Ireland, I've had ds off school since mid March. I'm WFH full time here with ds and a just turned 1 year old. Dp works away Monday to Friday.
We were doing school work at 6pm in the evenings and the weekends, before I finally had enough at the beginning of June and stopped. (Summer hols are in June here anyway).
Honestly the break was so badly needed, in the last two weeks we have started doing a little bit again as I dont want him to be behind when he goes back in September. Ds is so happy with the new way we are doing it that we are playing 'schools' today and he wants to do lots of school work!

If your family is isolating, then being a key worker is irrelevant, you're all home.

My gut feeling is that Oct - Feb half term is going to be chaos in schools and in work places. People in and out the whole time. I might be wrong (hope I'm wrong), but I'm mentally preparing myself for it.

We've been told that we need to be ready to go straight away with online learning. We have to somehow teach 5 - 11 year olds how to use Teams by mid September. They cant do that without adult support. Also, what if the teacher of the closed bubble is the ill one? Am I expected to be running online live lessons from my bed?

For this to work from a societal perspective:

Massive survey of home tech needs to be done. Children without a laptop/decent sized tablet, given one each.
Teachers without school provided laptops and webcams need to be provided with one each.
Every school follows the same curriculum day by day, so when bubbles close, they pick up gov financed online learning from Oak.
If you're isolated then you have access to gov funding for those 2 weeks, and guaranteed food deliveries.
All businesses are on board with this, no bosses are arseholes about it.

So you know, nothing like that will happen (I hate the curriculum idea anyway), so we'll poddle on, individually doing the best we can.

I'm going to plan and save online a set of YouTube learning lessons for my key stage at school, over the summer. Most can access youtube on a parent's phone, and we'll send a work pack to go with it.

"If you have to isolate, the whole family has to isolate, untill you all have negative tests, keyworker kids or not"

Not if someone is isolating because they are contact. Family members are not required to then and the contact has to do their 14 days regardless of themselves testing negative.

How is this even going to work? It’s winter I’m concerned about, my kids get every cold going so we could be off for 14 days every couple of weeks, not sustainable