If the schools close there should be no pretence that they have switched to "online learning".

[Billie18]

If the schools close they are shut. Schools are not equipped to deliver teaching online. Teachers have not been trained to teach online. Children are not equipped to learn online. The curriculum has not been designed to be taught online. If schools close then children will not be receiving an education. It is dishonest to pretend that they are.

So if the schools close then teachers should be furloughed and children's education should be paused at the point of closure. Closing schools should not be disguised as something it is not. This would allow the damage to continue indefinitely. If schools remain closed for a longer period then teachers should be made redundant so that they are free to do other work. This of course would be terrible and would hopefully not be allowed to happen... But then schools have already not been fully open for nearly a year.

Excellent points there DeRigueurMortis and there have certainly been many secondary aged children who played a blinder last lockdown (I know lots who did) although this is less likely for primary aged children of course.

In this age group, I do feel that the ‘plug in and play’ aspect of online learning is unrealistic (especially for working parents) and certainly in the case of my 5 year old self isolating twice last half term (so a month) I couldn’t have done that and instead, did some learning either in the evenings and mostly at the weekend. In contrast to a previous poster, I happily used The Oak National Academy And was impressed with it for this age group.

To expect full days of online learning every day for many primary aged children is unrealistic (and in many cases it’s not wholly necessary)

**Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

This is a goady post for sure, ( I believe the OP has form)**
It isn't really it's a nasty bitchy post deliberately setting out to cause upset and encourage people to join in.
But teachers jumping to the bait of this are missing the point.
It holds a truth. Education provision since Covid 19 has not been fair or consistent, or consistently accessible, and even if it were it is a woeful substitute for the experience of school, for most children.
Missing the point? We live and breathe the inequality of state education. We fund thr ever growing gaps to try to reduce the inequality, we fight for more equity, money to support our kids. We see the frustration and despair of our kids when equipment fails or isn't available. We know and most do our best to give our kids the best chance.

However like all jobs, some are great most are ok/good and some are bad. Seems to be similar for the school closure experiences. Most teachers also in first lockdown did it all on own equipment/broadband etc. I had my dd (7) recording my lessons on my mobile because my internet couldn't upload video files. I did my best, I had no complaints from parents and I engage regularly with parents anyway.

**RaspberryCoulis

Completely agree. Our local council has put a total veto on live teaching, unions are dead against it too. So it's back to April/May with a few worksheets.**
Lots of authories are not doing live l
Essons because lots of parents didn't want them, pre recorded lessons are fine, I think, in all Scottish schools.
**Piss poor.

And it's not "if schools close" in Scotland, Queen Covid has already announced we're not back until at least 18th January.**

And online learning, unless other forms have been arranged must be provided by all schools from the 11th to the 18th. Children have been prepared in schools on how to do this, logins etc. If in doubt or concerned by work provided contact slt.

My my DDs online lessons have been a farce, none in first lock down and only came in for lockdown 2 but still barely any onlne lessons, usually work set via school.email but with limited support/ teaching. The online lessons they have had are in core subjects only ( but not maths!) And teacher is online only for either first 10 mins or last 10 mins to help with queries ( and sometimes forgets to log in at all!).
DD13 in particular has trouble self starting and being motivated and worries about getting things wrong, neither listen to me even if I can help ( which is more difficult now they are in secondary school) And me and DH work full time so it's hard to keep on top of it. On top of that DDs laptop stop charging over xmas and needs repairing so she wont have access to a computer.
Some schools do it well others dont but on the whole I agree online learning is completely rubbish for most pupils and no substitute for classroom learning.
I think furloughing teachers or making them redundant is going a bit far, though i admit to being frustrated during first lock down as my DC werent really taught at all during this time, for example English was read a book of your choice and write a book report, that was the equivalent of 12 weeks teaching for the English teacher

Total fail in bolding type, can't blame equiment just myself 😣

@MrsFogi

Agreed. My dcs got f**K all education during the last closure, and I spent a fortune paying teachers (who were I presume supposed to be teaching at their schools) to tutor my dcs. Even on recent trials at the dcs' schools half the teachers claim not to have access to a laptop/not to know how to use Teams/that their microphone is broken.

Did you actually ask them if they were teachers supposed to be teaching at other schools or is that just a made up passive-aggressive dig? More likely they were tutors, teachers who had given up working in schools (and I don't blame them) or supply teachers. You do realise the GOVERNMENT suspended the curriculum and asked teachers to only provide childcare for vulnerable and key worker children. Were you expecting some kind of full-time CBeebies style teaching to plonk your kids in front of all day? Even when in schools children get on with things on their own - the teacher provides the input and then the children get on with the work. They are not constantly spoon fed all day.

At DS's school the teachers are trying their best but lessons aren't helped when there are pupils muting the teachers or kicking other students out of the Teams meeting. It's so frustrating

@BubbleBaubles, there's a way of getting round that, if you want to mention it to your ds teacher. Once they've created the meeting, they'll need to go back into it then click "meeting options". That will take them to an Internet page where they can set the controls to "only me" for presenter options and not allow pupils to mute/unmute. The pain is it's several clicks per meeting and you have to do each meeting individually.

Without fail, if I forget to set the controls on any lesson, some joker will think it's hilarious to mute me on a regular basis.

England has pretty much the best trained teachers in the world. They can and do deliver amazing quality lessons day after day, they can, with support do this for distance learning. It is not as effective as F2F but we are in a pandemic.

@dadshere

England has pretty much the best trained teachers in the world. They can and do deliver amazing quality lessons day after day, they can, with support do this for distance learning. It is not as effective as F2F but we are in a pandemic.

Do we? Not that I disagree with how fantastic and hardworking most teachers have been, but really? The best trained in the world? And only England?

This is the calibre of crap that my dyslexic, dysraxic, autistic y4 was expected to learn from for four long months. I could barely read this drivel on my phone on the messaging app. Despite the advantages of time, space, a computer and a PGCE it still wasn't viable. Trying to deal with a 9yo with SNs, and immature 7yo and maintain a routine while work dripped in at random times in the morning wasn't viable and I rapidly settled for the consistency of an hour of Bitesize a day just so my DCs didn't forget where their brains were. Surviving with sanity intact was also a priority.

Fortunately because of DS1's learning difficulties, he has his own laptop in addition to the family one. Not that I can guarentee to get an autistic child to engage with a video call with a disembodied voice as he can't stand cameras.

OP was being hyperbolic, but with a valid point. Not all remote learning is equal in quality. Accessibility is not universal in access to technology, time, space, development and learning needs.

Face to face learning in nueseries, schools and universities is the best leveller we have in empowering young people. Remote learning polarises advantage and disadvantage.
Some young people will never recover the potential that was stolen from them in 2020.

AccidentallyOnPurpose - Can't speak for Wales, Scotland or N.Ireland, I don't have enough experience. I do have a great deal of experience of education in many other countries, and believe me, very few countries even approach the standard of Secondary teachers in England, let alone surpass it.

@MrsHamlet

Thank you, DeRigueur You've said the thing we're not allowed to say!

I don't mind doing that .

I would however like to clarify that my experience is related to secondary education. I do think the challenges at primary are very different (for both parents and teachers).

By way of (one of many) example(s) I saw a FB post of a parent whose child is in one of my DS's year 13 classes. It was a full on diatribe about "shitty" online provision, poor teaching, teachers having a free holiday on full pay etc etc.

I asked DS about it and the child is a PITA in class (physically and when they rarely bother to log in online).

Another parent responded to the FB post as asked if they'd discuss their concerns with the teacher at the very recent online parents evening....no. Said parent was "unfortunately busy" and unable to attend (despite time slots over 5 hours that you were given a months notice to book with a very efficient online system that took me 10 mins to sort out).

Again I'm not disputing that some school have done better than others, but knowing how well DS's school have responded, the criticism they still get from a disproportionately significant number of parents isn't linked to the performance of the teachers/school it's a reflection on the child and potentially the level of parental engagement in their education as a whole.

I'd also like to agree that it's all very well rolling out tech to the kids, when some teachers are expected to provide laptops with whiteboard functions etc at their own expense or be accused of failing the students if they can't/won't do this (name any other profession where this is ok? As an IT professional should I pay for a top of the range laptop/mobile phone to do my job? Or should a health care professional pay for dressings/bandages etc?).

@DreamingofBrie

Thank you for this. Do you think teachers would mind if I sent it to them if this happens when they go back? I wouldn't want them to think I'm teaching them to suck eggs but I would bet a few don't know Teams that well. I use it for work and didn't know this either

I would however like to clarify that my experience is related to secondary education. I do think the challenges at primary are very different (for both parents and teachers).

I dod witness a ks1 attempt at online. It wasn't even a proper lesson really.
A cacophony of noise,excitement,shouting and dogs,cats,hamsters and even babies being dragged to the camera and shown off.

@EachDubh - you really are missing the point though. Its a horrible OP. But teachers on here are going on about how hard they have worked is irrelevant. The truth it holds is not the teacher bashing, with which I have no truck.

But rather that online provision has been patchy, under-resourced, doesn't meet many children's needs, can't/doesn't provide the pastoral or social needs that are an equally important part of school, or the free school meals, when needed, and that vast swathes of young people can't access it anyway for reasons of hardware or bandwidth. And that is (even) worse than the existing shit scenario of our undervalued and underfunded education system.

The fault rests entirely with the govt, and those who voted for them. Not teachers.

@BubbleBaubles, not at all. A colleague taught me how to do this!

In the first lockdown I just created recurring lessons according to my fortnightly timetable so only had to do the meeting options thing for each lesson once, but that makes things much harder when it comes to opening a single meeting chat or finding the recording of an individual lesson. So we've been requested to set up every single lesson as an individual meeting which, whilst more navigable, creates a load of admin.

I was nodding to every bit of your post BogrollBOGOF until you included this OTT ‘drivel’ (using your terminology)
Some young people will never recover the potential that was stolen from them in 2020.

For some posters agreeing with the OP and moaning how shitty they have had it as parents and how their children have been failed they might want to head over to this thread and get some perspective:

Disabled kids,the forgotten Covid victims http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4113739-Disabled-kids-the-forgotten-Covid-victims

They might also like to give their support to the OP @NotEver0.

@ChloeDecker

I was nodding to every bit of your post BogrollBOGOF until you included this OTT ‘drivel’ (using your terminology) Some young people will never recover the potential that was stolen from them in 2020.

Why is that "drivel"?

Some children, especially those with SEN's have absolutely suffered disproportionately and the impact on some could well be very long term.

A very insensitive post I think and I'd direct you the the link I posted below...

@Billie18

If the schools close they are shut. Schools are not equipped to deliver teaching online. Teachers have not been trained to teach online. Children are not equipped to learn online. The curriculum has not been designed to be taught online. If schools close then children will not be receiving an education. It is dishonest to pretend that they are.

So if the schools close then teachers should be furloughed and children's education should be paused at the point of closure. Closing schools should not be disguised as something it is not. This would allow the damage to continue indefinitely. If schools remain closed for a longer period then teachers should be made redundant so that they are free to do other work. This of course would be terrible and would hopefully not be allowed to happen... But then schools have already not been fully open for nearly a year.

Seriously are you a teacher? If not how can you comment? Schools have been preparing for online delivery for a number of months now. Many of us taught during the previous lockdown but we are much better prepared

The terminology of ‘drivel’ didn’t come from me to be fair hence I put it in quotes and it was the catashtrophising language of ‘stolen’, ‘potential’ and ‘never recover’ which is over the top and not helpful to what were very valid points.

Please note that I am not saying that no child has been badly affected through education during this pandemic but the use of language from many posters assuming not being in school equals catastrophe instead minimises the disadvantages that children face in education before and after this pandemic, due to chronic underfunding, inequality and lack of services to support. Katharine Birbalsingh makes some very good points on this subject.

Reading your other post DeRigueurMortis, in a roundabout way, I was making a similar one to the thread you linked to. My point, to re-iterate, is that the pupils currently and truly disadvantaged are not disadvantaged due to the 2020 pandemic but they were disadvantaged both before and after and it gets frustrating hearing some parents complaining about schools being closed ‘due to vulnerable children being thrown under the bus’ but as soon as their children are back in school, they forget about those said vulnerable children.
It’s not the pandemic and this relatively small window in a child’s life that is causing educational harm but the political and societal decisions that have been going on for years and most parents (who it doesn’t affect) ignore.

Speaking as a recently-retired secondary teacher with 28 years' experience, I am afraid that some schools and teachers have only themselves to blame for what they perceive and term as 'teacher-bashing'. The reality is that standards of educational provision in England at normal times, let alone in the current conditions, are woeful. The pandemic has served to illustrate this to many parents who, IMO, deserve to know the truth about their children's education. There are many and varied reasons for these poor standards, not least atrocious and inconsistent 'management' of schools in the state sector and disproportionate workload for frontline classroom teachers who are faced with classes of 30+ while those who sit in judgement on them spend the day in offices carrying out admin. work.

@ChloeDecker

Reading your other post DeRigueurMortis, in a roundabout way, I was making a similar one to the thread you linked to. My point, to re-iterate, is that the pupils currently and truly disadvantaged are not disadvantaged due to the 2020 pandemic but they were disadvantaged both before and after and it gets frustrating hearing some parents complaining about schools being closed ‘due to vulnerable children being thrown under the bus’ but as soon as their children are back in school, they forget about those said vulnerable children. It’s not the pandemic and this relatively small window in a child’s life that is causing educational harm but the political and societal decisions that have been going on for years and most parents (who it doesn’t affect) ignore.

Thank you for your clarification.

I think from the post above we have much common ground.

There’s zero research that suggests remote live teaching leads to the best outcomes

Do we really need evidence for this though? Isn't it obvious? When we can see and hear our pupils and they can see and hear us it's the most like being in a real classroom that we can make it. When they can ask us questions directly and straight away, we can sort their problems out more quickly. It's easier for most children to hear and see an explanation than to read one. It's easier to engage in real time with your own teacher than to watch a video of your own or another teacher. If your school allows you to use the break out rooms/additional groups on Teams then you can successfully do group work.

I can't see how anyone can say that a recorded lesson or written instructions online can be better than a live lesson?

Teaching online must be utterly exhausting. It is more work, not less

It is, though to be fair it can be managed to some extent, as I found out over time. 95% of my lessons were live but what I hadn't factored in was the moving between rooms/setting up/ packing up (Australian secondary teachers do not have their own classrooms). What this meant was that I was pinging from one class to the next, as the students were, with none of the downtime that is part of the ordinary day. The massage came back loud and clear to dial it down. Even if work was homework, to give class time for it.

In the end, if a class had five/four lessons a week, one was not taught, nor any work set. The teacher had to be online on Teams though, to take questions.

What I also did was to dedicate lesson time to make individual Teams video conferences to go through work (thoroughly marked - Thank you Dictate in Word). The students really appreciated this.