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

[notevenat20]

I recently read

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).

[quote Chaotic45]@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer no I don't know that already, hence my question which I tried to word in such a way as to not cause offence.

A skim of the link you provided looks to me to be a piece about the challenges of measuring school performance, which doesn't really answer the question. I understand that measurement would have been extremely challenging, but I'm not sure it follows that teaching doesn't need to be done? Or maybe it does, as I said below I am confused! [/quote]
It does mention the suspension of the curriculum, I'm surprised you missed it. A bit of googling will find other references, try it.

@namechangchitty

I find your post condescending Noble are you a teacher?

You don't need to assume I can't access technology Noble

If my children had both had Skype lessons I would have borrowed a phone from a neighbour or friend for that time. It would have been fine.

Very funny.

I don't think you credit children with enough bouncebackability time, if I am honest,although I agree with most of what you say.

I think there was huge variation with some schools teaching online lessons and marking work that students produced (my niece got this) and other schools where there was not one online lesson, just a few bits of work per week on class dojo and when students did the work and sent it back it was not marked (as at DC school). I bought the textbooks and taught DC myself as not wfh. Only 5 DC of key workers in his school and some teachers went in one day a week each but we were told not to teach them but to sit with them so their parents could work. Others if vulnerable did not go in at all. I very much doubt any will face redundancy in state schools. In independent schools parents are paying and so the school has to offer a good service or else parents remove DC and teachers would lose their job. Sad but true. My dgc in reception got more work than DC in Year 9. Just pot luck on the school and their policy.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer I have googled and have not found anything meaningful. Hence my question on this thread where some teachers have pointed out that the curriculum was suspended.

The way this is referenced on here makes it sound to me as a non teacher that because of they suspended the curriculum they actually didn't require any teaching to be done. But, I didn't want to make an incorrect assumption, hence my asking if someone could clarify what it meant.

I'm not sure why you're so annoyed that I've asked, and why you think the information is ready available on google. Google is a minefield!

Name, some of the kids I teach have 5 or 6 siblings, they don't have that many smartphones and they certainly don't have that many tvs to stream them onto. Some of the kids I phoned in lockdown as their form tutor were doing their learning in the evening as they were looking after and home schooling their own siblings while their parents were at work. Can you imagine doing that as a teenager? How are they supposed to access live lessons even if they had enough devices?

I'm sure live lessons work great for private school kids, but every school is in a different context and the staff there are best placed to make decisions about how to deliver remote learning.

One of the problems with mass education is that all 32 kids have to all go at the same pace. We try our best with differentiation but it's not perfect. Non live lessons meant everyone could go at their own pace. I found a significant minority made better progress than normal.

I’ve explained it upthread Chaotic

Limited data too.

The curriculum being suspended was spoken about right at the start by BJ in March.

The "suspension of the curriculum " and its interpretation was enervating. I understood it to mean that new material was not to be taught. That is that the schools shouldn't go further in the curriculum than they had got to already.

But there are a million things you could do with whatever they have been taught before, surely. DS was in year 6 where they had already finished the first pass through the curriculum.

So instead of re-enforcing those skills and knowledge or teaching them interesting things not on the syllabus they did nothing at all.

And did you take that up witht the school?

Some of the kids I phoned in lockdown as their form tutor were doing their learning in the evening as they were looking after and home schooling their own siblings while their parents were at work. Can you imagine doing that as a teenager? How are they supposed to access live lessons even if they had enough devices?

I can see this is a real problem and maybe it was unsolvable at your school I don't know. But at DCs school they didn't provide anything online because of a theoretical chance that some children might not be able to access the internet. When asked how many that was no answer ever came and it was clear they didn't know because they hadn't tried to find out.

Just to contrast with another nearby school, there the number was five and the teachers walked around to those houses every morning and either picked up the children or dropped off work to do.

The point is that school's can often solve these problems if someone makes an effort.

And did you take that up witht the school?

It has always been made clear to me that as a parent I have no input in how the school is run. That is only for trained professionals.

That's a very very evasive answer.

Some of the teachers in my dds school undoubtedly did next to nothing, and yes I did complain to the school about this, AFAIK nothing was done, except perhaps the teacher in question moved to another year which may be unrelated.

From friends and other contacts, teachers were undoubtedly given the opportunity to prioritise their own children over work during this period, which I found a bit unfair at the time as mine got very little attention.

Enervating is a good word to describe this sort of thread.

Tell that to my friend who was run ragged by her two DCs whilst trying to teach live lessons while her DH WFH in a room upstairs!!

That’s a situation many people were in - utterly exhausting.

That's a very very evasive answer.

If the school says what they are (not) doing in an email to parents and you reply "Well that's not what I would do" what do you expect the reaction to be? "Good point let me change the policy"?

In reality you get a reply thanking you for your input and explaining how carefully they considered their decision.

I think a school would think you were 'that' parent if you responded like that! But if you queried why they weren't providing work you might get a different answer.

We queried why they weren’t providing anything other than a weekly emailed sheet, we just got a bland response. It was shortsighted leadership imo, many parents unhappy and looking to move schools. It’s a nice school, no complaints before, new head though and he struggled with staff management apparently (unions/occ health involved).
A shame when other schools provision looked brilliant.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer

The information is out there. And has been since March.

Here, for example.

www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactonmeasuresofukgovernmenteducationoutput/2020-05-13

Teachers were specifically told not to teach the curriculum to the children of key workers because those at home would not be following the same pattern.

But I think you knew that already.

I actually didn’t know that. I knew it had stopped for kids (not) taking exams but hadn’t realised the curriculum had been suspended. I guess because DCs teachers kept to the timetable as much as possible (not zoom but still very good). Yet I knew key worker children weren’t being taught per se but given work as per kids at home. So assumed teachers were carrying on with the curriculum best they could. I don’t think I once heard ‘curriculum suspended’ and hadn’t realised it had as my experience was teachers doing a sterling job.

the teachers walked around to those houses every morning and either picked up the children or dropped off work to do.

Should’ve gone round the neighbours and collected mobile phones for all.

It’s that lack of can-do attitude....

Its a shame when other schools provision looked brilliant

The solution for yourself is to move school I now know. I wish we had done it years before but when we did eventually it was a huge success.

One child got zero and another child got some (5) work sheets.

My neighbours are teachers at different schools and I know them well and they did next to nothing and gave up and planned elaborate holidays and went on long bike rides and painted the interior of the house.

Ofcourse I know that is not a scientific sample and I can't judge all teachers.

When I asked about the provision at my children's school I was told the teaching staff were being deployed elsewhere, and when I asked what that meant then they could not tell me?

And yes, I was told people are not well enough resources to do online learning, that online learning or live learning would provide them with safeguarding issues. I was also told there would be a catch up curriculum and that my bright children would be fine (no kidding!)

We were also send a patronising letter almost telling us to stop asking for work, we were sent a list of website like bbc and the line that really got to me was along the lines of "don't worry we know parents are not qualified teachers we will catch up when we are all back".

Yes, we parents, may not be qualified teachers but we are our children's first teachers.

We were then sent another patronising letter (I mean this is the type of school where you are called Mum by the teachers when you do speak to them) and told how busy they would be over the holidays working to govt regulations.