School only providing 1 hour of live interaction a day!

[NotLookingTooGood]

What is everyone's school experience? I am going a little crazy. We have live online learning of 2 increments of 30mns (maths & english) a day + homework that we have to supervise.

What is everybody else's experience?
The school is relying entirely on us to do the work.

You'd have to be a special kind of person to get on the phone to Ofsted to complain.

@NorbertMeubles

You'd have to be a special kind of person to get on the phone to Ofsted to complain.

Especially as the first thing they'll ask is whether you've followed the school's complaints procedure.

Work sent home, left to get on with it.

From twitter:

Remote learning this week - a thread- Monday 4 Jan at 8pm - PM tells schools they're closed for most pupils from tomorrow until Feb HT, having threatened legal action if schools wanted to stay closed before that. 1/6

Tuesday 5 Jan, schools respond and work overnight to activate remote learning and communicate with parents. Legal direction remains schools should provide remote learning from today 2/6

Wednesday 6 Jan - schools have remote learning in place. At 13.00, SoS announces that DfE guidance and expectations on remote learning is changing, but guidance isn't ready 3/6

Thursday 7 Jan - updated guidance comes out c. 15.00. Increases KS2, KS3 & KS4 daily expectation by an hour (or 33% increase at KS2, 25% at secondary) 4/6

... plus a new expectation that remote learning MUST include video / live lessons / direct teaching (previously could). All this when schools have just implemented their remote learning plans based on previous guidance 5/6

For many schools, this won't mean a massive change, and many are already exceeding the DfE expectations. But that's not the point. Complete disregard for the pressure school leaders and teachers are under. 6/6

twitter.com/tom_middlehurst/status/1347210245668548615?s=21

@noblegiraffe - you missed the bit where they announced last week that the holiday would be extended for years 7-10 and 12 (with no expectation of online learning until next week).

That just disappeared when schools were all closed.

“it's unacceptable that your getting paid full pay for doing jack shit.”

Hahahahahahahgahaha. I’m sorry. Jack shit. Hahahhahahahahahah.

Even the school you’ve described isn’t doing ‘jack shot’. Most of us are working longer hours than normal at the moment. The planning load is HUGE.

Oh yeah, I forgot we were only supposed to provide work for exam years until the DfE realised they were breaking the law in requesting that.

The DfE asked MNHQ to post on here what was happening and it was out of date almost instantly.

No live teaching but well planned lessons with links to oak academy. They give lots of feedback, answer messages and would phone if needed. Mine are reception and year 2 and I’m happy with that!

We have no interaction whatsoever at all. Y3, Y4 and Y6. Our teachers post twinkl sheets weekly on the school website. One hour a day off line interacting seems great from where I am standing but still unfair if other schools are offering more. The disparity in education is going to have serious consequences for the next generation.

@24HoursInPoliceCustody

Why do you think that that is 'Jack shit'? It's demonstrably not?? So many people here have absolutely no clue of the non-teaching aspects of being a teacher. I work in a school but not a teacher, and I have so much respect for my colleagues right now. They are absolutely snowed under.

God I would love to be a fly on the wall for all these complaints to Ofsted!

@Cripesitsthegasman19

Absolutely naff all contact for my kids.

So what have you done about it?

@Lastbonestanding

We have no interaction whatsoever at all. Y3, Y4 and Y6. Our teachers post twinkl sheets weekly on the school website. One hour a day off line interacting seems great from where I am standing but still unfair if other schools are offering more. The disparity in education is going to have serious consequences for the next generation.

The thing is, OP's children may be in a better situation than those on live calls all day. It is widely known that children learn more from doing than by passively listening. There are obviously nuances to this, but one hour of "teacher talk" is all they should be getting at school in primary, or they'd never get any work done.

Your situation is not ideal though. I hope you get a change in offer soon.

Isn’t the root problem that schools haven’t worked out how to teach half their children in person and half remotely at the same time? My university lecturer friend did that all last term by just having a live link open and with a camera that showed what he was writing on a screen. Could anything similar be done in schools?

We have nothing live or otherwise from the teachers themselves. All content Powerpoint and worksheets lifted from elsewhere. I don't mind that too much, but DS was excited about starting their new topic and this work is not linked to that at all.

Last year after Easter and after May half term all work was linked to a topic including the comprehension, history, art and geography which made it feel holistic. I'm hoping that this will be the case next week.

I feel teachers have been put in an incredibly difficult position and I won't complain, but I have the ability to source stuff myself if need be to do the topic DS was expecting.

Today my DS four year old has said he doesn't want to log on and that he'd rather be at school. This life is too short!!!! I am not going to pressure a four year old today. Maybe thats a negative move but I am tired of this so called structure. How does sitting at a screen for pretty much 15 mins here and then 15mins there teaching him anything.

Yesterday they were told to do cosmic yoga by watching a YouTube video for 20mins. So the teachers weren't present!!!

The speed of the sessions whereby by the time DS has written one word the teacher has moved onto the next. Come on!!!!!

@isobel79

Today my DS four year old has said he doesn't want to log on and that he'd rather be at school. This life is too short!!!! I am not going to pressure a four year old today. Maybe thats a negative move but I am tired of this so called structure. How does sitting at a screen for pretty much 15 mins here and then 15mins there teaching him anything.

Yesterday they were told to do cosmic yoga by watching a YouTube video for 20mins. So the teachers weren't present!!!

The speed of the sessions whereby by the time DS has written one word the teacher has moved onto the next. Come on!!!!!

You're complaining about the teacher being present. You're complaining about the teacher not being present. It's a bit hard to win there!

@notevenat20

Isn’t the root problem that schools haven’t worked out how to teach half their children in person and half remotely at the same time? My university lecturer friend did that all last term by just having a live link open and with a camera that showed what he was writing on a screen. Could anything similar be done in schools?

Definitely. That solution is possible but university lectures and school lessons are fundamentally different. A lesson is not a lecture, it's interactive and includes time for students to apply knowledge. Lectures are only one part of a university curriculum - the rest is done independently.

It's such a hard balance to achieve. I have a live link for some of the day, but when I am giving help to a child in class, the ones online can't hear. When I give help to a child online, the ones at school can't see!

If there were a better way for schools to share best practise or work together, we could be in a really good place. But Gove liked academies, so here we are...

My daughter teaches in a large primary school. They have around 25% of their students in under the Critical Worker/Vulnerable children criteria so she is teaching a class of 10 children from 9-3.30 every day. On top of that she us expected to plan and provide learning packs for her class to do at home. At the end of her teaching day she has to go on line for a minimum of one hour and have live interaction with every student in her class and give feedback on the work they've done that day.

About 45 children in the school dont have access to online learning so TAs are literally driving around to deliver work packs to their houses!

Live sessions are not appropriate until year 5 in my opinion.
Mine are Yr1 and Yr4 and each day the school is setting an English and Maths from Oak Academy - following a 10 lesson topic approach. Ideas for Physical Activity, A reminder to engage with Spelling Shed/TTRS/Numbots regularly and a topic based activity - again with videos to support the work. Teachers are responding to work uploaded and messages within a couple of hours.

It's perfect and I am very grateful. Live lessons for the ages mine are in would only add further angst. And in my view, the whole set up should be centred around what makes life easier for parents who are wfh and homeschooling. This would be a walk in the park if I was a SAHP.

Worksheets only here. However, as I WFH full time, the ability for them to work when I can work with them and not being IT support for live lessons while trying to run customer calls suits me.

@steppemum sorry only just seen your reply. Dd told me a few more came online for about 5 minutes and then logged off again. One teacher has written on show my homework that they will be doing a live teams lesson and you can join if you want to but not compulsory.

I too am surprised by this.

Definitely. That solution is possible but university lectures and school lessons are fundamentally different. A lesson is not a lecture, it's interactive and includes time for students to apply knowledge. Lectures are only one part of a university curriculum - the rest is done independently.

University and schools are clearly different, although less so as you hit 18. But lectures are perhaps not as you remember them. They are often interactive in the sense that questions are encouraged. And lessons are also only part of the way children learn at school with homework being another important aspect.

Clearly everyone needs to adapt in this new situation and we can't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Too much work, not enough work, not enough of the right KIND of work. Too many ‘live’ lessons, not enough ‘live’ lessons and how dare the teacher sometimes be ‘live’ and sometimes send recorded lessons. Too much contact, not enough contact, not the right tone of voice when I was contacted.

I don’t think teachers can win as what pleases one parent will upset another. At the moment, I am getting what is (arguably) a poor service from dentists, GPS, supermarkets, shops, banks, the DVLA and many, many other organisations. I preferred it when I could expect things to run smoothly but there is a devastating virus sweeping across the world, our hospitals are nearly overwhelmed and I will therefore accept that ‘good enough’ (and sometimes ‘barely acceptable’) will have to do. At the moment ‘it will do’ has to be enough, even for schools and teachers who seem to be expected to work at a higher level than any other organisation.

If you disagree, perhaps you could name the industries in which you work? Then I can point out the things that your companies and occupations are doing which are annoying me at the moment 🙂

The speed of the sessions whereby by the time DS has written one word the teacher has moved onto the next. Come on!!!!!

Maybe your DS is slower than the others and the teacher doesn't want to make everyone do nothing while they wait for him? This happens in class too! It's harder online when the teacher can't even see exactly when everyone has finished writing.

I would estimate that the complaints of 'too much work' are far outweighed by those who feel their children are not being taught by the school at all or only for a fraction of the time. The new lockdown came as a surprise for the majority of the population and so we're all having to juggle tasks we would normally not have to do.