What is the new plan for primary education if schools close?

[Manteo]

I read somewhere on here that since the huge variation in distance learning provision in the last lockdown plans have been made in case it happens again.

My DD is in year 2 and I'm not quite sure how effective distance learning can be for this age but I'm hoping it will be better than having Twinkl sheets uploaded to the school website once a fortnight which is what happened last time.

Is there an overall plan or is it still down to the individual school? It seems likely schools will close and I'm just wondering if anyone knows what we can expect.

@lemons1571 my list would be the same as yours. And I don't think it is too much, it should be the bare minimum.

Oh and I would add- no messages from teachers going on about what wonderful fun they are having with their own children! Fucking insensitive when I am doing their job and mine.

Just saw breaking news

A senior minister has insisted children will return to school in January with teachers handing out coronavirus tests.
It comes after fears schools may remain closed until February.
Communities Minister Robert Jenrick said that classes would restart in person in ‘the first few weeks of January’.
This is a breaking story. More to follow.

I feel for the teachers trying to juggle so much, at once. What the Government is asking is unrealistic and completely underfunded.

I am dreading another lockdown. I have a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old with SEN and we both work full-time. Plus, I am not a teacher and expecting me to engage with them as one, for a full day of learning is unrealistic.

I am bookmarking links, so it will be a mix of Google classroom (which has been set up), Spelling Shed, Rockstars, Reading Eggs and Teaching Your Monster to Read. in short bursts. DH is on notice he cannot fuck off upstairs to work like last time as I need to attend conference calls now - it's going to be a tag team. Neither child does well with Zoom, so remote tutoring is out of the window. I may aim for a weekly outdoors project we can do at the weekend.

@elsaesmeralda

Just saw breaking news

A senior minister has insisted children will return to school in January with teachers handing out coronavirus tests.
It comes after fears schools may remain closed until February.
Communities Minister Robert Jenrick said that classes would restart in person in ‘the first few weeks of January’.
This is a breaking story. More to follow.

After all the U-turns this year, I don't have much confidence in Government announcements any more.

My Y4 class got shut down due to 2 positive cases before Xmas and I did live teaching all day from home. All children logged in from home using Google Classroom and I screenshared the lessons. Children completed work whilst I was online with them and unmuted to ask questions. As they are Y4, some activities they went off and did by themselves and submitted through Google Classroom once done. We did whole class quizzes and catch ups (show us your pet - lol) to make sure they still felt connected. It heavily depends on the school and their distance learning policy. As a school, we’ve been told nothing about post-Chrisgmas beyond take uour laptop home just incase!

After all the U-turns this year, I don't have much confidence in Government announcements any more.

Indeed. If anything, an announcement like this makes me think school closures are more likely, not less.

[quote Lemons1571]@iamusuallybeingunreasonable it’s beyond me why we even expect parents to be able to do it all. It’s not achievable IMO.

Either primary schools come up with something that means parents are still able to do their day jobs and keep a roof over their children’s heads. Or they don’t and do nothing. All the helpful suggestions that parents start their own work at 4am and finish 11pm so they can do schooling in the middle of the day, on an ongoing basis with no end date in sight, leave me dumbfounded.

I can only presume that this is dreamt up by men who don’t worry themselves with childcare and homeschooling.[/quote]
This with bells on.

This time round we'll make use of being key workers and send ours to school. We almost killed ourselves last lockdown trying to juggle work and kids at home and I am not prepared to do it again. I am sure there are others who plan to do the same so I am guessing there will be more key worker children in schools than the last time.

I’m very interested in the people suggesting that schools reconvene in August to recoup any annual leave parents lose to cover a potential closure, so they can continue to work and pay their mortgages etc.

I’m a primary teacher with a 2yo. Our childcare is carefully organised for term times. Even an extra week or two in August would leave us unable to pay our mortgage that month.

No one wants primary schools to close. No one. I can’t name a single teacher I know in person or online who does. But if they do it will be a DFE decision, so whether it’s non teacher parents or teacher parents who have to suffer, let’s please remember that any decision made has a negative impact on someone, even if it’s not you.

Even if there are live lessons, I have calls with clients. I can’t miss those to supervise my 4 year old. Hoping support bubbles aren’t scrapped and then my parents can help out with the homeschooling. Our jobs are insanely busy in Jan. I’m not putting myself in line for redundancy by not doing my job.

Ours upload the days work and the parents supervise/facilitate it and then it’s submitted.
Problem is I have one laptop for 2 children (7 and 5) and a full time job which means I have to be on the phone most of the day. And a 2 year old thrown into the mix.
It nearly killed me in lockdown 1. It would probably finish me off this time.

@Manteo then as previous posters have stated you need to raise that with your school. My school have provided laptops and dongles, at least 2 live sessions every day for each bubble closure (we’ve had lots), printed packs of work to accompany these lessons which are recorded so can be watched later, physical resources (fairly easy now they aren’t allowed to share). My bubble can complete activities with me during the lesson if they don’t have any help where I can pick up on who’s stuck , give encouragement etc. This has worked for our parents as most don’t work full time but still isn’t perfect for those who do. Despite all of this across our 3 bubble closures, we only had a third of the year group join in despite providing devices for more than this. Most children did complete the paper pack but things like phonics cannot be taught that way. This leaves a gap between children who join in and so progress from the smaller group teaching and those whose fall further behind from having done nothing/small bits.

@TheABC yes I was thinking along the same lines !

@Quornflakegirl

This time round we'll make use of being key workers and send ours to school. We almost killed ourselves last lockdown trying to juggle work and kids at home and I am not prepared to do it again. I am sure there are others who plan to do the same so I am guessing there will be more key worker children in schools than the last time.

Yes - we only have DH as a keyworker but this time he's doing the ridiculous police shift pattern so I just can't keep the kids at home, so I'll be fighting tooth and nail for keyworker places for both kids.

@MistletoeandGin contact the school, they may have devices to loan out or be able to provide you with a printed pack or even tell you which session to prioritise if you can only make/watch one a day.

I find it very interesting that so much any page should in and The Oak National Academy hasn’t not been mentioned. It’s actually the only thing the government have put decent money in to.
It’s been very useful during the multiple self isolations last half term that my 5 year old has had to endure, whilst having to work full time still.

Sorry about my autocorrect errors there! I still have an iPhone 5 and there’s a massive delay when I type!

Shouldn’t be “pages in” and “hasn’t been mentioned”

I've seen it mentioned a couple of times on here about the option of TAs teaching/supervising bubbles in schools, while teachers work remotely from home. I am a TA in KS1 and would not be happy with this at all. I'm paid a pittance and I'm not a teacher. TAs would have to hold HLTA status, and be happy with the fact that they're the ones dealing with the risk of being in the same room as potentially infected children, dealing with any behaviour issues and so on, whilst the teachers stay safe at home!

@Quornflakegirl

This time round we'll make use of being key workers and send ours to school. We almost killed ourselves last lockdown trying to juggle work and kids at home and I am not prepared to do it again. I am sure there are others who plan to do the same so I am guessing there will be more key worker children in schools than the last time.

Yes this will be us. Both key workers but kept our son at home in the first lockdown. My DH mental health as an NHS worker is shot and he has a huge backlog of vulnerable patients to look after. Also, all carers leave and paid holiday leave has run out.

Our DS will be in 100%

My sisters a nurse and has been contacted today to see if she wants two weeks of work as a clinical
Lead in a school (covid testing) start date the 4th Jan.

Well considering she and her colleagues have a full time job, erm nursing? I’m not sure who they will find to be clinical leads at such short notice.

[quote KeyboardWorriers]@lemons1571 my list would be the same as yours. And I don't think it is too much, it should be the bare minimum.

Oh and I would add- no messages from teachers going on about what wonderful fun they are having with their own children! Fucking insensitive when I am doing their job and mine.[/quote]
Yes! We had a video of a teacher showing us what she'd been up to during lockdown. It was a montage video of her reading, baking, running, colouring, walking the dog etc!! So tone deaf!!

@ChloeDeckTheHalls

I find it very interesting that so much any page should in and The Oak National Academy hasn’t not been mentioned. It’s actually the only thing the government have put decent money in to. It’s been very useful during the multiple self isolations last half term that my 5 year old has had to endure, whilst having to work full time still.

Yes I'll second that Chloe Our remote learning plan makes extensive use of lessons on Oak Academy. We will not be doing live lessons but will be trying some video content such as a reading activity, some kind of assembly / PSHCE lesson etc. We have had 4 laptops provided for vulnerable children in our school and our parents have told us overwhelmingly that they do not want live lessons.

I’m sending DS in on Key worker provision this time if it happens. My profession (dental) was closed last lockdown but we are open now and DH always had a key worker letter (financial services).
DS is an only child and lockdown was awful for his well-being despite excellent online provision by his school.

When pupils have to self isolate due to a positive case in their class, then remote learning and childcare also has to be considered with no notice for the parent and it’s much harder because the child is not even allowed outside for exercise. I had a month of that last half term.

Nothing is for certain at this time.

Infant school has set everyone up on Google classroom and over half term we had to submit a picture to check it worked okay. Junior school has put an instruction video up on Seesaw on how to use their online classroom, I haven't watched it though.

No idea what the provision will actually look like but at least we know where to look should the situation arise.

I hope the junior school do some kind of video classroom, assuming they are all at home, even if it's 15 minutes in the morning. DD simply will not listen to us so she either whizzes through a worksheet that's far too easy or she gets stuck and refuses all offers of help. Neither could be described as education for her