Would this type of 'blended learning' be better received?

[IDSNeighbour]

Generally, I'm not in favour of the idea of blended learning. I want to see my classes every week. I teach a 1 lesson a week subject anyway so already feel I don't see each child enough.

But I think that (in some areas of the country at least) it's starting to look inevitable. And much better to have blended learning than totally online teaching (regardless of how in/effective it is, I will go clinically insane if I have to go through teaching via MS Teams again ).

In Brazil, they have had a sort of blended learning for years due to having too many children for the school buildings/number of teachers.* In their state schools, half the children attend the morning session and half the afternoon session. They get, I think, 4 hours schooling (8-12 or 1-5) with no need for a lunch break and then have homework to do in the other half of the day.

Could this be a sensible solution for a while, do you think? I don't know if I'm missing some obvious downside but I feel like it could be an effective way of halving the number of children in the classroom without halving their time spent in school.

I do appreciate it doesn't solve the childcare issue but I'm just thinking about it from a teacher's point of view atm, not a parent's.

*(Disclaimer, it is possible that overcrowding isn't the reason for Brazil's system at all and that I had a Portuguese fail when it was being explained to me - I'm not fluent in Portuguese by a long shot. So sorry to any Brazilians I may have inadvertedly offended!)

No point discussing this AGAIN. Blended learning isn't going to happen, schools are staying open. Streaming lessons when students are self isolating, and shortening self isolating to 7 days is going to be the least disruptive way forward.

Germany and France have also stressed that schools staying open is their highest priority.

This sounds to me like a proposal for primary school.

Not for secondaries, where pupils have full subject specialist teaching, and you cannot just divide the day in half with no regard for who is doing which subjects, and things like access to labs, DT rooms etc matter.

Primary I'd accept blended if my 5 year old could attend the nursery his brother is at the other week, he's there this week and he's so happy! But there's probably not the space. Although a circus would suit him too, pretty sure he'd feel right at home!

My eldest is in secondary and I think blended is fine for him. They recently had a lesson where a TA was in the room and the teacher zoomed in to teach the lesson! That could also be worked into some sort of idea? I think a lot of parents would willingly sign up for blended if their kids did well over lockdown which could mean the kids who need full time could have it?

I'm os sad this time hasn't been used for a radical shake up of education. I can see why change would be mental at this point but it really could have been so amazing!

I'm a strong advocate for keeping schools open at all costs (primary in particular) but this is purely based on my position as a full time working, single parent - and very low risk circumstances. Although one poster (noble?) always manages to sway me by pointing out that the minute one of their bubble pops I am screwed! And if it pops repeatedly I am beyond screwed and everyone's education and lives will be fucked anyway.. so my selfish thinking will catch up with me soon I'm sure! Maybe if the government sorted their shit out and came up with a plan there wouldn't need to be division but I guess that's their thing right.

Well done teachers, I honestly think you're incredibly overlooked in all of this, including by me. Some of us who demand for them to be open are just petrified of losing our jobs and can't see past that. I really do hope you're all coping through this as best you can 💐

I’d prefer blended learning. Part time, smaller groups.

Surely it would work better for working parents than repeatedly popping bubbles and likely total closure further down the line? A predictable part time attendance with provision for key workers’ childcare?

I'm teaching in an area where a lot of pupils are off isolating. We stream the lessons and try to include them as much as possible so the numbers are partially reduced in the classroom by default. It's working ok for maths but terrible for my GCSE science lessons.

Re your suggestion I don't know how much more teachers can take. A lot of teachers around here are doing hours and hours more (unpaid prep ) than normal and I'm seeing exhausted teachers and stress at levels I've never seen before. Asking teachers to do double the hours in school would just be too much. Bear in mind a number of us have kids at home isolating too with no childcare options!

We're on cover any periods we're not teaching (the sick teachers are often too sick to teach) , we're teaching material from previous years that we've never taught, converting our materials to minimise hand outs and then whenever someone goes off isolating (daily at the moment ) if it's because of symptoms we have to go through the whole track and trace in school.

Also in secondary schools where I am a lot of teachers come in and teach their specialist subject for a few periods and then go onto other schools, so the timetabling would be impossible to coordinate . Logistically as well we share limited resources like the lab so in an under resourced school this would be problematic. It may work though in primary. But again, for working parents , it's hard enough trying to sort what to when kids are isolating , the constant half day would just not be feasible in the longer term.

It's a tricky one 😑

@MoggyP my sons secondary had all that set out in the half days blended learning plan produced in the summer. Really impressive.

@ShinyGreenElephant

I think it could work OK in secondary possibly, far from ideal but if my daughters school is typical then they'll all be shut by Christmas anyway. Would have to be 3 hr sessions not 4 though, 8 hours teaching with no break, as well as the extra time setting the home learning? I teach primary in a normal fashion (pre covid) and my workload was already completely unmanageable

Wait a minute - so teachers who don’t accept their contract being unilaterally changed and their work doubled have to take a 20% pay cut? You’re aware teachers are already leaving in droves?

Sorry, I’ve quoted the wrong point above - how did that happen? Hang on, I’ll try again. Sorry @ShinyGreenElephant I agree with you!

@FredaFrogspawn

If you made working both shifts optional and paid teachers more to do the double, many would do it.

You could make one shift only a shorter day (4 lessons not 5) and therefore 80% of what teachers are on now. So overall salary bill would be 160% of present bill. Space issue would be solved but not childcare issues for working parents.

Wait a minute - so teachers who don’t accept their contract being unilaterally changed and their work doubled have to take a 20% pay cut? You’re aware teachers are already leaving in droves?

OP, your students and colleagues do 8 hours worth of lessons a day??

No point discussing this AGAIN. Blended learning isn't going to happen, schools are staying open. Streaming lessons when students are self isolating, and shortening self isolating to 7 days is going to be the least disruptive way forward

I actually hope you're right. Open schools are the best way of educating, teaching and providing childcare. But I'm just not convinced it can stay that way now. Not when you look at the stats. I'm ok personally at the moment (rural, tier 1) but the state of some large tier 3 schools is pretty terrifying.

It's interesting that so many schools are now happily streaming their lessons into children's homes when over lockdown they were strongly advised not to even teach online.
Where I am we taught our full timetables online but, at the moment, have been told we definitely won't stream live lessons with children in them into homes. Our children are mostly younger (only up to Year 8) and a lot of the parents will be in the room with them and actively observing what it is going on. It will just to be too difficult to hide the individual needs and abilities of some children and we'll comments and complaints ('why is my child in a class with X when they clearly can't do Y?' 'oh, isn't it interesting that you are so far ahead of Z, little wonder child' etc.) It will also, imo, make the lesson far less effective for those in the room (much more teaching from the front, for example, and constant monitoring of the computer).

The advised way to live stream in to screen share only or use a visualiser - so the class never gets seen. Also apparently if a headset microphone is used only the teacher's voice will be heard clearly.
My school doesn't have the bandwidth to cope with this though, so we are sharing the classroom tasks and PowerPoints on SMH with linked oak Academy or Bitesize supplementary stuffy.

The Brazilian system doesn't leave teachers without a break. Lunch is between, for example, 12 and 1pm and there are no children on site at that time.

Nellle - no, between 6 and 7 hours depending on their timetables. Plus break, form time, assembly/chapel of course. We have a staggered lunch so there are 7 one hour teaching periods a day, of which the children have 6, and then some extra individual or small group music, drama and sport lessons are in break times, before school or after school. So, because I teach Drama and English, I usually start teaching at either 7:45 or 8 to get LAMDA lessons going before school properly starts.
We do get non contact periods too, of course. And much longer holidays. Though we work Saturdays and have evening duties. But have smaller classes. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Thanks, Whynotme - that sounds better than I had imagined but still quite problematic. You'd have to be very careful not to mention a child by name a lot of the time, which I'd find hard. And a lot of the time, I tend not to use the board/computer in my lessons at all so there wouldn't be much to share without sharing the room itself.

Dd school did this in June to get all of the children back in class. The classrooms were cleaned at the changeover point, desks sanitised etc. It worked brilliantly, Dd preferred it because the classes were smaller and she said they seemed to get as much work done as normal as they could get on quicker and had no assemblies or PE. However, this only worked because I was WFH, if that happened now we are fortunate that she could walk to her grandparents house but most aren't in that position and wouldn't have care after school and at year 6 I don't want her homealone.

I have 1 x Y9 and 1 x Y11
Both Autistic.
Both have to take a public bus 20miles to nearest catchment school. They cope together but not apart (ditto being left at home)
So 9-1, OR 12-4 fine.
But what if they are given separate times?

Here break/lunch is supervised by teachers in their year groups.
Assemblies etc are still banned, and when they were on teachers were also present.

A shake up does need to happen and this involves the government giving schools money, not cutbacks. Many schools simply do not have the resources to do anything other than full learning in school.

As a teacher and parent it's a no for me.

I prefer that idea educationally but can see that logistically it would be difficult. For my Y8 child not online learning is basically lost learning, he needs to be in a classroom with a teacher. His school have amazing with online provision, a full timetable each day but he finds it hard. I know some children do well at home but it isn't the silver bullet a lot of people think it is.
I have no idea what the solution is though, it's tough in schools at the moment.

@IheartNiles

This would fuck over the working classes. Who, unlike most of mumsnet, have to, you know, work. And travel to work.

It would fuck over working class people with small dc only, though. That will be a minority. They're going to be pretty fucked when the schools shut, classes are repeatedly in self isolation etc anyway. Looking for a more organised solution is surely a good thing.

Should have read 'online learning is lost learning!!'

I'd personally be fine with that as a parent, because I work part time and have teen dc, but it wouldn't work for lots of working parents.

Also I don't think the government is likely to be willing to pay all state school teachers for an extra couple of hours at work every day. The cost would be huge!

Nobody wants it, but I think secondaries will have to have it soon. Primaries will have to muddle through with the repeated isolations I guess. That's going to be the hardest thing for working primary parents - the sudden need for childcare, whereas part time school would at least allow people to plan and hopefully there actually would be school when there's supposed to be school.

Surely the answer to this is depends on the individual school / age of the children? For some secondary schools I can see how this might work - but round here (rural area) most children have to get the bus to school and it would be a nightmare.

You know what, maybe the government could trust schools and head teachers to make the best decisions for their individual circumstances? But I guess trusting them has never really been considered acceptable.