Primary Schools plans’ for future homeschooling

[Lemons1571]

The government guidance says something along the lines of “schools need to be ready to immediately switch to remote learning to minimise disruption”. Presumably this is if a bubble bursts or there is a bigger local lockdown in the area.

So, how are the primary schools going to manage home learning when parents are also working and unavailable to input / manage / set up this “provision”.

I would like a plan B for my family, but I can’t think of one. If there is a local lockdown we can’t have anyone else in the house (eg vulnerable grandparent) to help. I work 9-6 no flex, DH works out of the home 9-5. Mortgage needs paying. I can’t try and enthuse a primary aged child to do some homeschool at 7am or 7pm, it just wouldn’t happen and wouldn’t be fair. But then not paying the mortgage if I don’t work isn’t exactly a great plan either.

Does anyone know if primary schools have a plan that doesn’t assume all families have a sahp able to support this? Does anyone else have a plan B?

Good luck getting any PTA fundraising at the moment! People have little money and even less time/inclination to fundraise.

It would help a lot to fund raise if it was clear that all the teachers were working full time. We had the ridiculous situation where teachers were shielding which apparently meant they couldn't help at all or be contacted.

If parents are wfh you can’t do any form of teaching your DC’s, the last few months have shown that. It’s irrelevant whether the schools provide any material. Primary age children don’t work without supervision and support. Next term if the DC’s are at home again, the position wouldn’t change*

I agree mostly. Our friends grandparent do a lot online with their primary aged grandchildren. It does depend on age and personality of course.

@notevenat20

* It still doesn’t solve a working parent’s dilemma of needing to be simultaneously at work and helping a child access online learning. There’s no way around that?*

Agree completely. The govt do say that it will take a lot to shut primaries.

Sorry I am obsessed with how bad school support has been during lockdown so was addressing that part.

I do sympathise - I know we were very lucky with our school but even so differences between teachers were apparent, so whilst a good SLT and HT makes a vast difference it was still a hard time. At least this time round your primary school is mandated to follow the remote learning guidelines set out.

I just think there is no answer to the ‘How does the government expect us to home educate our children and continue to work?’ dilemma. And keyworker provision and anything else is a red herring. We’ve all just got to hope any coming disruption is temporary and be mentally prepared for that, I guess.

Most of the PTA fundraising events won’t be happening this year either as parents won’t be allowed on site.

We're mentally preparing ourselves for muddling through. During lockdown DH had to simultaneously teach his own pupils, mostly live online (private school teacher), play his part in dealing with the exams chaos, and home educate our own primary school child. It was bloody awful but it happened. I don't look forward to it happening again, but if it has to, it has to.

Saw a Twitter video from BBC about a school who have made of changes to make things work for next term but one worrying point was that they had an isolation room for any child displaying symptoms but a parent would be expected to collect them from school within 45 minutes. That wouldn’t work with commuting times and relying on train services.