Year twelves and 13s are screwed

[Northernsoulgirl45]

I am really cross. In dds school year 12 and 13s don't get cover teachers. Work is supposed to be set online.
Well today 3 of her teachers are off either with COVID or Self isolating. I really hope they are self isolating as one is pregnant and one is close to retirement.
She is supposed to be sitting an external exam in January and they haven't even looked at the main paper yet. No work for that subject online.
We are in a low case area which up to now only had a case or two in school .
Now we are in the middle of a big outbreak which will be replicated across the country and certain people on here want to abandon any mitigation in schools. So many kids are not getting an education right now and it is shit.
My younger two are already at home and feel my year 12 might as well be. Bearing in mind her year group were totally abandoned last year too.
Disclaimer I do not blame the school. They have done everything in their power to mitigate risk and fully expect work will appear online soon but as teachers on here keep on saying it is not enough.

Why? When teachers are off for other illnesses they at least manage to say "read pages x to y and look at questions in the text book". Presumably they aren't actually ill if self isolating.

Yes, this. It’s one of the worst things about being ill as a teacher. Setting five lessons of cover when you’re chucking your guts up with norovirus. It’s standard to set work while you’re off.

Why on earth is it on these threads when a parent says 'I don't blame the school' and explains that there's a big outbreak of covid, and teachers explain the impact that lots of sudden absence has on school infrastructure and provision, some posters are still intent on blaming the school and insisting that the impact of covid is neither here nor there.

When posters say that they're aware that the school is doing everything it can and they know that work will appear before too long, and explicitly say that they're angry with the government's poor handling of the situation, some posters still insist that it's the teachers' fault.

When teachers are off sick they, like every other worker in the country, should not be expected to work. That is exactly what sick leave is. The reality is that lots do.

Given there's large outbreak in OP's school (2 of her 3 children are SI at home) it's almost unbelievable MrsMiaWallis that you're still posting as though the problem is feckless, work-shy teachers rather than a global pandemic which is ripping through schools with practically no mitigation measures.

[quote Walkaround]@MrsMiaWallis - yes, I’m sure a message can be passed on to children to read a bit of a text book, but that isn’t teaching, is it, and if that is going to help the children pass an exam in January, then clearly all the efforts to do proper online teaching are unnecessary. Still, one could always go ahead an complain that one doesn’t know what to readmin the textbook without prompting and the teacher concerned had better be in hospital or something to justify this appalling laxness.[/quote]
That was literally how I was 'taught' some of the texts for 'A' level English as a technical college in the '80s

Teacher turned up for the first lesson, said that we should use the rest of the term's lessons to read Richard II or whatever and that he'd give us a test on it at the end of term.

I am NOT advocating for this before anyone says I am, although I did get an A and learnt a lot about independent study.

@christinarossetti19 - to be fair, you didn’t need a teacher to tell you to read the set text. If you can’t work your own way around a text book by years 12 and 13, independent study is clearly completely alien to you.
If the next lesson was going to be discussing what students had been asked to do for homework in the last lesson, telling them to read pages in a textbook is not going to replace the lost discussion and consolidation.

Some posters appear to have forgotten that teachers are human beings. The gleeful desire to complain immediately, without a single day’s grace, without caring whether the teacher concerned might be seriously ill, or might have various issues going on in their private life to make instantaneous provision of work for every class they are responsible for, is seriously vomit inducing, self-centred lacking of any empathy.

Given there's large outbreak in OP's school (2 of her 3 children are SI at home) it's almost unbelievable MrsMiaWallis that you're still posting as though the problem is feckless, work-shy teachers rather than a global pandemic which is ripping through schools with practically no mitigation measures

Don't be over dramatic.

Teachers set work when they are off and always have done.

The gleeful desire to complain immediately, without a single day’s grace, without caring whether the teacher concerned might be seriously ill, or might have various issues going on in their private life to make instantaneous provision of work for every class they are responsible for, is seriously vomit inducing, self-centred lacking of any empathy

Vomit away. The OP hasn't been gleeful, she's worried. And she hasn't complained afaik. And she's waiting to see what happens.

christinarossetti19 one of our teachers did this also. It was great we just read the book in our own time and mucked about in the lessons.

MrsMiaWallis so why your the angst about teachers who are off sick not setting work immediately?

@MrsMiaWallis - are you always too lazy to read all the posts in a thread and then try to deflect from your own response by pretending you think I was referring to the OP, who made it clear that, unlike other posters on this thread, she didn’t blame the school?

Are you always so rude?

@christinarossetti19

MrsMiaWallis so why your the angst about teachers who are off sick not setting work immediately?

Where have I said that christina?

Nowhere, that's where.

@Northetnsolegirl45 which subjects is your year 12 studying and which specifications? If they are studying AQA Psychology I can email you some work, PowerPoints and stuff.

My sibling is Yr 12 /1st Yr of college.
If pupils or teacher off all work is on Google classrooms or zoom.
That includes anything covid related or if ill for another reason /missed public transport or whatever.

"Why? When teachers are off for other illnesses they at least manage to say "read pages x to y and look at questions in the text book". Presumably they aren't actually ill if self isolating."

Here MrsMiaWallis. As well as ignoring the fact that the OP said that she didn't know whether the teachers were ill or SI, although there is a big outbreak in the school.

Oh fgs! What is wrong with that? Why not have a go at yhe poster that says work goes on Google hangouts when a teacher is off? Stop policing threads, it is so tedious!

OP- you sound reasonable and understandably frustrated to me. I’m Head of Sixth Form in a school that is currently experiencing a significant outbreak and we’re trying our best to cover classes and send in supply to supervise and connect classes to teams so that self isolating teachers can teach remotely, but it’s just impossible at the moment. We’ve had to ask some students to do some lessons from home or in the study room and I know on some occasions work hasn’t been set. I’d like to think that in general our provision is pretty good, but it’s definitely a totally different ballgame in the middle of a proper outbreak than it was just a couple of weeks ago when I could confidently say every absent teacher either taught online or someone in the department set appropriate work and every class was supervised. It’s been a real shock to see how quickly it all starts to become unmanageable.
The provision for your DD doesn’t sound great, so I would raise it if there’s no improvement after the first day or so of absence. Things are slipping through the net at the minute and if a parent raised the fact that their child wasn’t getting any work I’d appreciate the heads up.

@MrsMiaWallis - I tend to be rude when I think someone has been rude themselves. But I guess you wouldn’t recognise “ When teachers are off for other illnesses they at least manage to say "read pages x to y and look at questions in the text book” as sarcastic and condescending on the back of very little knowledge of the situation in the school. And you probably wouldn’t recognise, “stop policing threads, it is so tedious!” as rude, either.

For all the years I taught I always had spare lessons for each year group to last a full week. Just in case I was ill. Lessons were kept at school iny room and all related worksheets too. Head of Sixth Form knew where they were and would send some of work down to lower school got their lessons. I also had an electronic drop box students had to post competed work into. None of this was hard to organise and meant students could access their lessons if I was in hospital.

@caringcarer - and did you test this system out when there were multiple staff absences across the school as a result of a mass outbreak in school during a pandemic, where teachers probably no longer had “their room” available to them but had to carry everything around with them from one classroom to another? Or are you talking about normal times?

And was your work prepared on the assumption the majority of your class would be in school to receive your lessons and that the exam syllabus was set in stone, or had you also prepared for online learning for all, or possibly just some, and liaised with anyone in school who might be required not just to not be off sick themselves, but also available to get the technology set up in class for the children attending in person at school?

And had the sixth form classes had their curriculum suspended by the government for two terms the academic year before by any chance?

@caringcarer

For all the years I taught I always had spare lessons for each year group to last a full week. Just in case I was ill. Lessons were kept at school iny room and all related worksheets too. Head of Sixth Form knew where they were and would send some of work down to lower school got their lessons. I also had an electronic drop box students had to post competed work into. None of this was hard to organise and meant students could access their lessons if I was in hospital.

Don't bother caring

Even your own lived experience won't be good enough for walkabout and christina.

That's not quite true MrsMiaWallis.

In terms of lived experience during a global pandemic when a virus is ripping through schools, teachers are all ears.

The expectations for 'remote learning' are now worlds beyond what they were at the start of lockdown. It's not about setting generic cover lessons that could be done at any time, it's about seamlessly continuing to teach the curriculum.

Thank for offers . It is Maths which is actually now OK as work has been set. Also Business and Finance. The Finance one is the short course with a January exam. Still no work but school have said Business and Finance Teacher is back in Monday dk only one lesson missed..
Clearly they were caught on the hop as cases have been incredibly low up to now.