Schools should stay open for Years 11 and 13 or many are doomed

[Coronadisasterclub]

They've had such a terrible run of things and if they don't go back after Christmas I think GCSEs and A'Levels are absolutely doomed. They're barely going to cover the course and many DC are at an all time low. I am really worried about what the long term consequences of this could be well after Coronavirus is a distant memory.

Working at your business or not, it is on you if you allowed them to do nothing. Put some routines and structure in place; you'd be up in arms if a school wouldn't for DC with Asperger's

How rude.

@CovidCarol It's rude to blame someone else for your own failure to do what's right for your children.

@Woolff It sounds as though you're belittling yourself, to say that your teaching is composed of "instructions to read independently, [for students to] to write extended pieces, to redraft with short specific focusses and guidance. " Are you really saying that you or teachers in general have so little input into their students' learning?

But I don't want to get into the specifics of your teaching - I simply do not know about that, only what you've written.

What I do know from my children's experience is that yes, they can self-teach and will probably do fine having missed one term's teaching - but I'm thinking about education in the whole and how many many kids do not have the family support that mine have, nor the academic ability to get themselves through GCSE or A Level courses.

Making up for that missed term is not an easy task, for teachers or students.

@Woolff, no apologies, you're talking rubbish. I really hope you are not a teacher.

Even if it is "on" the parents to ensure their children participated in whatever "education" was provided - it is in no way fair on those same children to have their future life chances determined by this. It serves none of us well.

I'm actually quoting (and wholeheartedly agreeing with) PP who say it's is 'on' parents to make sure their children engage in some education.

I have two in year 13 and year 11. Learning during lockdown was generally poor, many teachers admitted they were too busy at home with their own (school age) DC! 'Tidy your file this week' was the instruction on more one occasion for my year 11. Not impressed.
They've had ten weeks self isolation between them since Sept, and the year 13 is still only in two days a week. Come th summer, most of his A level study will have been done online. The college across the road are in full time. Same exams. Not fair.
Ds1 got much better GCSE grades than his teachers predicted in 2019 and so both desperately want to avoid teacher assessment and sit exams. Work should be done not to make exams easier, but to level up assessment criteria nationwide depending on the amount of face to face teaching time lost. Institutions already have this data. Use a national sliding scale and award extra marks accordingly.
These year groups should now absolutely be prioritised and mask wearing compulsory to avoid repeated self isolation.

@cptartapp

Many teachers had their roles adjusted. I was redeployed to care for key workers children at local primary schools. I’m a secondary teacher and usually have nothing to do with such little kids - I was crap. Little kids are not what I signed up for.

But I also had my hours changed to 8am - 5pm and was not given time to monitor my own classes or do anything except shove a few work sheets my admin teams way.

For any future lockdown we will not be redeployed. We will be expected to remote teach, which is what we really should have been trying to do first time around. Provision should be a lot better going forward.

I hate the idea that my students parents think I’m a lazy fucker, when I spent so many hours caring for key workers kids.

Then that should have been communicated to the parents.
It just smarts somewhat when more than one teacher admitted it was too difficult to provide remote learning when their own DC were around. And finding out from an SLT friend that that particular teacher's kids were in fact eight and ten and their mother a SAHM.
Other teachers I couldn't fault.
I sympathise with other people's perceptions though. I'm a practice nurse and many assume we've shut up shop and been doing nothing since March.