Have state school teachers faced redundancy for not working during lockdown?

[notevenat20]

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I think those of us who work in the private sector understand we are going to have to work during periods of self isolation whilst juggling family. It was the same during lockdown. We want to keep our jobs so we will have to provide the service.

This got me wondering, is this a pressure state school teachers feel too?

Certainly at DC’s school no educational provision was given for almost all of lockdown (there were 6 key worker children in the school, out of 420).

I don't know if many people have noticed this by the way, but my DCs use Teams on my laptop. I'm able to see the interactions of all class members and if I chose to, I could contact them using my DC's accounts. Clearly I wouldn't, but I don't know that no parent would. There is definitely a safeguarding issue with video conferencing, but we will all be pressing ahead with it regardless, because it's what many parents demand.

Zoom lessons would have been unmanageable for my family because we don't have good enough WiFi for 3 lots of video calls to be made at the same time (2 parents on work zoom calls and one child), although we are lucky enough to have 3 capable devices in the house.

Zoom calls would have been unmanageable for a lot of the pupils I teach. The parents told us that. They don't have enough devices for every member of their family to be able to access it at the same time. 5 children sharing 1 laptop and 1 phone does not enable all 5 of them to access zoom lessons. The families in small villages where the internet connection is patchy, when they have internet during the day they were prioritising urgent work tasks for the parents, the children had access during their parents lunch breaks and once their parents were finished work. I had teenagers emailing me their work at midnight because the internet was better in the middle of the night. Zoom lessons would have been unmanageable for them.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@SaltyAndFresh - maybe I can’t afford to send my children to private schools or don’t think I should have to in order for them to actually get an education.[/quote]
Then demand better funding for the state system so that we have a cat in hell's chance of providing anything close to what private schools benefit from. Can I remind you that Govt has allocated no extra funding to schools to deal with Covid this September?

@MrsAwesomeDragon, @CarolBayskin doesn't want your logic. It doesn't suit her perspective.

@noblegiraffe - do you mean ds didn’t have a laptop? Not following why zoom lessons were unmanageable.

Oh, it seems there are two very similar usernames.

Ugh, my mistake.

@SaltyAndFresh - why are you objecting to me asking for decent provision during lockdown though? I don’t really see why better provision couldn’t have been provided. As op says, the same teachers were being paid- more lessons and feedback could have been provided.

Zoom lessons are not practical.

@saltyandfresh - what logic?

Zoom lessons for my 3 would have been a nightmare. Internet issues and serious lack of space in my house would have been very stressful.
I don't know any teachers that didn't work hard through lockdown. I don't claim to know all teachers but the ones I do and slt all worked very hard.

Family of 4, Carol and 3 laptops. Worksheets were great for my DD because she could work through them at a time appropriate for us as a family. Zoom lessons would have tied us to her school timetable which would have clashed with ours.

I would have moved heaven and earth to put things in place for my DC to have online lessons.

Our PFTA, 3 local charities and our academy trust have provided laptops for all DC who responded to being asked if they needed one. Granted some may not have come forward. But still school are have said there will be no online teaching.

Not following why zoom lessons were unmanageable

My WiFi was taken up uploading PPs to Teams, which takes about 3 years if they’re voiceover ones.

If my DC had needed to be using Zoom at timetabled times it wouldn’t have worked.

Also OP - what’s your job?

I would have moved heaven and earth to put things in place for my DC to have online lessons.

People assume that what would be good for them would be wanted by everyone.

Schools got complaints about the work being set whatever they did. It was too much, too little, too creative, too worksheet-based.

Then demand better funding for the state system so that we have a cat in hell's chance of providing anything close to what private schools benefit from. Can I remind you that Govt has allocated no extra funding to schools to deal with Covid this September?

Do you think they would? The incentive structure is just completely different.

Do you think they would?

This government wouldn’t, because they don’t give a shit about state education and they fucking hate teachers.....unless they thought it might affect how parents vote.

But with no GE for years, they probably won’t even care about that.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@HipTightOnions - lol at how “significant minority” that I wrote in my post comes out as “vast majority” in yours. Hope you’re not an English teacher.

What is happening then to the teachers who weren’t doing their share in lockdown or even at other times? Nothing to the ones I know. Why so defensive of those not doing their job? I wouldn’t feel the need to do that in my profession, unless I was one of them.[/quote]
You’re not making sense Cayrol Baaaskin

You said this: it was shameful the lack of provision for education in the state sector for the vast majority of pupils

So do you think “the vast majority of pupils” were somehow let down by a minority of teachers?

@noblegiraffe I agree that you can't please everyone and that different parents and young people have varying opinions as to what would be best in terms of live lessons, recorded lessons and worksheet based lessons.

Also surely the best option, or combination of options depends on how long schools will be closed for, age of DC and numerous other variables?

Education is clearly in crisis, more lockdowns and closures are inevitable and who knows if they will be long of short term.

Teachers, parents, young people need sensible guidance and that is sorely lacking.

I’m not defending those who didn’t do a good job. I am questioning your authority in deciding who they were and what the consequences should have been.

Whatever schools would have done over the lockdown, there would have been complaints from parents. My DS had live lessons. He had to be at his desk at 8.30am and apart from morning break and lunchtime he was at his desk until 4.00pm. he also had homework both during the week and at the weekend. We were quite happy with that. He definitely benefited from the structure. We were also paying for the privilege and got very little reduction in our fees.

Other parents on here would probably have complained about the amount of work, screen time etc.

There were many threads on here over the summer term with parents complaining about the amount (whether too much or too little) and quality (screen time, worksheets, links to Oak Academy, BBC Bitesize), time consuming eg projects. Parents complaining about schools phoning them and blocking the numbers, even when it was explained that they were welfare checks. So many parents saying they had given up with home schooling it was too much. What were schools meant to do?

There were national reports that the amount of pupils engaging with the work provided was very low both in private and state provision, so in the majority of cases it probably wouldn't have mattered what schools provided.

What I find a shame is that all the parents who spend their time teacher bashing don't spend more time complaining to the Government and request more funding for schools, as many of the issues with schools will be helped with more funding.

Zoom lessons would have been difficult for us as we were both still out working FT. The kids attended school when needed but obviously wouldn't have been facilitated to partake in zoom classes so they would have missed out. I would have loved to have access to pre-recorded videos though just to keep a bit of normal teaching for the kids, rather than death by twinkl worksheets. They basically got a handful of twinkl worksheets uploaded at the start of the week, no differentiation, no marking or feedback.

One of my 3 DC however had an amazing teacher who did provide feedback (though still no actual teaching or differentiation). That teacher was incredible (I bought them a £50 voucher for Amazon as their support was way over and above what I could expect!).

There's differences in every profession, some people always go over and above, others do the bare minimum. At the end of the day, as long as teachers did the bare minimum, then they have fulfilled their employment obligations and cannot face employment management procedures. I don't think I have ever come across a teacher who wouldn't be at least doing the minimum required. Its up to SLT to work out whether staff were pulling their weight, not parents!

I don't know why this thread is specifically about teachers and not every public sector worker

@Chaotic45

I would have moved heaven and earth to put things in place for my DC to have online lessons.

Our PFTA, 3 local charities and our academy trust have provided laptops for all DC who responded to being asked if they needed one. Granted some may not have come forward. But still school are have said there will be no online teaching.

Well there can't be if teachers still have classes in front of them

@SaltyAndFresh I may not be very bright but even I realise that teachers can't provide live lessons and teach at the same time. I was referring to arrangements for as and when schools or bubbles close.

Curry our entire Y8, 9 and 11 are closed so I'm feeling fairly sure that nosey if not all children are going to spend a fair amount of time home learning.

My cousins school are providing prerecorded lessons for closed bubbles whereby just one teacher records the lesson for the whole year. This seems a sensible use of resource and if done in my sons year for example would mean one teacher doing the lesson rather than the 7 science teachers currently teaching in Y9.