I think there was a massive difference between primary and secondary. I had a child in each at the time. Now they are both in secondary, I’m so relieved.
The head teacher at our secondary is particularly amazing, totally pragmatic. He has a sensible approach but his underlying attitude is ‘can do’ and ‘do what we can.’ The subject teachers are really good at providing specific, clear instructions about what to do - which means the kids can either do it themselves or with some guidance from parents (eg food tech practicals).
I think it’s probably harder to deliver a primary curriculum in such a specific way, and younger primary kids need more supervision than it’s possible to give if you are working, which might account for what seemed like a massive difference.
However my child was in Y6 during the first lockdown and perfectly capable of some self directed learning. In spite of this, the main correspondence we received from primary school was emails from the head using shouty capital letters about not using key worker places unless you were practically dying and another one saying that we could have a five minute phone call with the senco if our children were struggling emotionally (the senco was not a qualified teacher).
As per her request, we did not use key worker provision, mainly because she made it clear that key worker children could expect to be separated from their peers if there was any eventual return to school. With a child in y6, I expected a return to school (though she dragged that out until it wasn’t worth doing, too using some very spurious reasons) and didn’t want my child isolated from her friends in what felt like an unnecessarily punitive measure.
We were specifically banned from contacting the class teacher and left floundering around looking for online resources. I simply couldn’t understand how the school couldn’t at least point us in the right direction of resources, and I was particularly cross about this when I drove past the school and saw the staff sunbathing while a dozen ‘key worker’ kids played netball with the PE coach.
This thread isn’t specifically about teachers, it’s about having to work when your kids aren’t in school. The point is, this is a very difficult task if your children aren’t engaged in learning, and a huge number of parents experienced very poor offers from schools last time, contributing massively to their stress. I expect the thought of doing that again is intolerable to many, and they’re angry and scared, which will unfortunately spill over into anger misdirected at teachers, many of whom are doing a great job (my children’s secondary school included).