What support did your school offer over lockdown?

[Gobacktothe90s]

Not a teacher bashing three just wondering what support was offered over lockdown that you thought was useful.
Was any other support other than online homework offered?

Nothing - I think there were some online mindfulness sessions that were offered, which we didn't do.

I do know they were very active with vulnerable/ PP children though.

Nothing other than online homework, my child is PP and no extra support was given. She started secondary in Sept and also had to self isolate for 2 weeks recently due to burst covid bubble, we had a homeworking pack and a hamper to cover the lack of free school meals which was nice and unexpected. We also received a call from form tutor which is more than we had from Primary.

DD's state lower school provided pre-recorded daily lessons for maths, English, science/topic. They did a pre-recorded daily story and assemblies. They provided a daily video from the headteacher speaking to the children. Phone calls home to check kids and parents were ok. They did a class assembly via zoom each week where all the children could see and speak to each other as well as their teachers. They used an app to put their completed work onto, and DD's teacher would give feedback on every child's work everyday. The children were given daily challenges as a whole school and the end result of the challenges could be put into the school Facebook page for the headteacher to comment on. I also know that they did a lot extra to support their vulnerable pupils. There was a huge community spirit and we very much felt like we were still part of the school community even though we hadn't stepped foot into the school buildings for months. All of this added up to us feeling like our children were appreciated, supported and cared for, and it also made us feel very supportive and appreciative of the staff and everything they were doing for our children during lockdown and since they've returned.

Oh fgs could you not check one of the 27,000 other threads on this subject?

Generic email once a week, suggested bite size, you tube and BBC children's programmes

Very poor considering on full pay and only 20 kw/vulnerable children in on average with most school staff saying wfh..... on what exactly

Due to their poor efforts I am anti shutting school together with the evidence that younger children don't appear to spread the virus

I didn’t want or need much - they sent some worksheets and phoned a couple of times. I was happy with that, I wanted to just get on with my own thing. (Children are KS1 so I’m perfectly capable of covering phonics, maths etc myself.) There were some class zoom social catch up things and some videos on the website of their teacher reading a story etc which was nice.

They were offering online lessons to yr 5 and 6, phoning vulnerable children daily, delivering food parcels, giving out every piece of tech they could lay hands on, doing all sorts of extra stuff for children with SEN, providing extra materials for pp children, several staff worked through every holiday for keyworker and vulnerable children and generally did their best. At least 2 part time staff I know worked extra days every week, unpaid, to staff keyworker bubbles. I know some parents, possibly unaware of the above, have been very vocally unhappy about lack of support but quite honestly I think providing extension work for a gifted child, acknowledging daily photos of everything a child had done, video lessons from 9-3 etc was wildly unrealistic and just not a priority.

Two “live” online lessons per day plus one pre-recorded lesson. All homework marked with feedback. Pre-recorded assemblies and PE activities. Regular updates on Twitter. Pastoral catch up with whole class once per week. Private primary school. We were looking at moving to state for senior but are now having doubts due to the way many state schools dealt with lockdown.

2 worksheets a week. No feedback.

1 video made by the teacher sent through in the entire period.

No calls to check in with us.

They weren't open for keyworker children either.

@Mistressiggi

Oh fgs could you not check one of the 27,000 other threads on this subject?

Oh fgs - right back at you

Why open the thread? It's not compulsory.
Moderate your own behaviour, don't expect the world to bend around you.

@Mistressiggi

Oh fgs could you not check one of the 27,000 other threads on this subject?

I haven't seen any thread on what support was offered or what parents would think was useful. I did see a lot of teacher bashing and this isn't about that.

Pangwin wow that sounds really helpful from the school.
Thank you everyone with replies

A weekly scheme of work with worksheets made available on Monday meaning no time to prep in advance while trying to keep our own jobs. One phone call just after Easter.

We did most of the work and uploaded pictures of the work every Friday.

So for me it would be useful if the work was made available over the weekend so we could look at it, have time to print it off and mull over the best way to fit it in. That would be very helpful.

@Gobacktothe90s

Full on lessons via 'Teams' PE/sport was optional - they could join in with the wide variety of online options yoga/challenges/body fit etc or they could go & do their own thing.
There were teachers/pastoral support they could contact and all kinds of optional sessions on mindfulness etc & craft/hobby/book/games/writing groups etc

They all work on touchscreen tablet/laptop things normally anyway. So that system didn't need to change & all pupils have the necessary tech.

Other than sending teachers to kids homes they couldn't have done more.

Yes it's private, but they did a LOT better than many other private schools I've heard about.

& yes, they supported the local State infants & juniors throughout (still are).

Somewhere between one phone call & bugger all. Ds was in Y11, had his exams cancelled & was then abandoned, no support no lessons & then one email with pages & pages of bridging work for sixth form & no contact for questions or support.

Older dd was given weekly power points, not live and no teacher back up, to answer queries.. The whole cohort got stuck on some big project. It took the teacher two weeks to post more help.

Little one was given the title of some history projects. We were directed to twinkle and that's it.
Two weeks in the summer we were suddenly bombarded with work, no help or live support and told... There you go!

Curriculum is done.

Other school around me just went online, lessons as normal or for primary gave out weekly work with comp, spelling etc.

It was a nightmare for trying to work out the curriculum, which bit they have covered, questioning about this was given vague answers and not in a helpful way.

I couldn't understand why we weren't given proper support but.. If they didn't want too.. Why not just tell us where they got too in the curriculum and give us a list?
Their work schemes?

We had not even had a parents evening since last November!

Our yr3 child's was good.
Suggested improvements:
Answers so parents can see
Online reading for yr r and yr 1

Ours was supplied on the friday which was good.

Oh yes, weekly challenges like how many star jumps can you and your family do??

Lessons consisted of looking at a PowerPoint and maybe some BBC Bitesize.
Regular phone calls from form tutour

Full online school with lessons as normal on Teams, inc PE, Drama plus clubs. Private secondary. All kids have pen enabled laptops as recommended by the school a couple of years ago so fully up to speed straight away.

You did ask!

The online work was an email with four or five activities for the week.

But... They had 3KW classes. They delivered the meal vouchers to those who qualified, and food parcels to those who didn't but the school knew were struggling. They opened to every reception, Yr1 and Y6 child in June full time.
So on a personal level with a Yr2&4 we were a bit abandoned. But the school did a good welfare job for the most vulnerable.

They are doing great now they are all back at school.

None really a few worksheets in the web site but nothing handed in, they made no contact and the first anyone at the school knew he was still alive was walking through the door in September.

It’s important to know that shutting schools really does meaning ending education for many children we know this because we tried it in March through to July.

Set work via class pages on school website
Weekly calls home
Emails provided for each teacher
Opened for a large amount of vulnerable / keyworker children
Delivered food parcels and paper work packs for those without laptops
Opened for every year group from beginning of June

DDs nursery got it exactly right in my opinion:
Weekly phone call to check we were OK
Food parcelsfor those who needed them
Optional learning activities and interaction over Seesaw
DSs primary school was less good:
Less user friendly platforms
Work hidden across several platforms
(Did the password for one platform have to be looked up on another platform or did I dream that?)
Work boring, not differentiated and rarely marked
No pastoral care at all. Granted we werent PP or considered "vulnerable" at the start but people can get vulnerable quickly in a pandemic.

It's a bit "leafy" so I'm gonna go ahead and assume they haven't considered pastoral care at all rather than they were prioritising more needy people.
Finally: Since we returned there's been quite a lot of judgement of "families who don't engage". They did not make engagement easy.

We got videos of the staff dancing to a song, presumably to raise spirits?

It didn't.

DS2's teacher did an optional weekly zoom quiz to check in with the class.
Work set was appropriate but printer heavy.

DS1's teacher just sent useless photos of work on her laptop or from a textbook. Even the parents of NT children struggled. DS didn't stand a chance with his dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism. Within a fortnight we gave up and switched to bitesize and used it for DS2 too as it was simpler to keep the style standard.
DS1 had one phone call as a tickbox exercise for his personal SEN targets.

Never actually heard from DS1's teacher through June and July.