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Original poster

School only providing 1 hour of live interaction a day!

584 replies

NotLookingTooGood · 07/01/2021 10:25

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.

OP posts:
Perky1 · 09/01/2021 12:14

Br1256: I think the data protection issue sounds like an excuse. Private schools in my area don’t seem to have this hanging over them; maybe private schools are not obliged in this way. During the first lockdown local state school provision was virtually absent at the point of delivery to children working from home. Some families gave up very early on. My 13 year DS hasn’t missed a single
lesson during the whole of the pandemic apart from one week when holidays were extended at the onset to establish live online teaching. They have been amazing. I am sorry that so many children have missed out.

noblegiraffe · 09/01/2021 12:15

People banging on about how amazing a full timetable of live lessons are need to read the threads from parents whose kids are going to miss out because it’s impossible for them to attend them.

TwoTinyCrafters · 09/01/2021 12:35

I'm a teacher and a mum of 2. I am teaching Live lessons for five hours a day to secondary aged pupils and it is killing me having to sit in front of a screen like that. I would be grateful your kids don't have to look at a screen all day. In school the teacher would give some instruction and then the kids would practice the skill independently so half hour for maths and English seems about right to me. Also please bear in mind that many teachers have kids at home to supervise and are working to a schedule of being in school so e days with the increasing number of key worker/vulnerable children too. It is a logistical nightmare and I promise you we are all working as hard as we can to provide for the kids as best we can.

Ginqueen456 · 09/01/2021 12:40

My primary age son gets half an hour live lesson per day and then 2 or 3 work sheets to be completed that day. My secondary age daughter has 5x lessons per day and it depends on the teacher if they go live or not so some days she may have 5 live lessons and the next she might have 2.

Beline4u · 09/01/2021 13:39

@noblegiraffe i honestly dont believe there will be any videos/lessons. Nothing has been other than we have 'packs' to pick up an there is a new system to monitor attendance.

It can become overwhelming at times. But I just do what I can. My kids will be ok. I'll do my best to make sure. As I'm sure other parents will. We are in real difficult times, nobody can hide from it. It's better to be understanding and solution focused (whatever that means to our families) than stressed.

noblegiraffe · 09/01/2021 13:44

i honestly dont believe there will be any videos/lessons.

In which case BBC Bitesize and Oak Academy are your friends.

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/this-terms-topics

classroom.thenational.academy/

ichundich · 09/01/2021 15:13

Live lessons can be recorded so that those children who are unable to attend can watch them when it's convenient. This is how my university has done it for years without any issues; many of the teachers / lecturers use slides to move through the content, so it can be seen equally well wether students are in the classroom or at home.

expatinspain · 09/01/2021 15:51

The first lockdown was nearly a year ago and the situation with the pandemic hasn't improved since. It's reasonable for parents to expect schools to have a contingency plan for online learning ready to implement for when the next inevitable lockdown happened. There should be some online classes each day for every child, bar perhaps the very youngest in primary and nursery.

I live in Spain and from September the majority secondary school children, with the exception of the first year have had a mix of online and home learning. They didn't go back to school full time. The education system here is much more underfunded than in the U.K. and the schools have implemented a plan and got it together. I have a friend who teaches at an international school and she has half the students in class and half online every day and they have been doing this since September. She doesn't complain like I see people doing in the U.K. if anyone even mentions teachers doing more online learning and she gets paid about half of what U.K. teachers do.

Of course there are schools and teachers who can do more and children who are being failed, and there are schools and teachers who are going above and beyond. This is an important subject and people should be able to talk about it without being jumped on. Teachers and schools are just like any other profession and absolutely should be held accountable and called out if they aren't doing enough.

Workyticket · 09/01/2021 16:40

People saying that plans should have been in place to nump to online learning are deluded.

The school system has been buckling for years. Teachers were already working nights and weekends to keep up with the ever increasing demands. There's been NO time to plan for contingency work.

And yes. Some teachers are able to provide more than others. One of my colleagues is single, lives alone. She often pops up in meetings to tell us that she's planned into next half term, that her reports are written and that she updates them every week for each student... makes me feel shit as I'm often planning at midnight for the next day because I have a family to work around too.

I'm doing my best, she's doing her best. Obviously hers is better than mine despite my efforts.

We're not all in the same sized boat.

AliceMcK · 09/01/2021 16:53

20mins morning register and chats the rest is pre-recorded pre prepared work with worksheets and books. It’s exactly the same for children in and out of school.

There are parents (the ones with only 1 child to worry about) bitching and moaning about the lack of interaction and work, while others (working from home & multiple children) feel it’s already too hard and too much.

Teachers can’t win!

My rule is, they do registration, look at what they can do on their sheets/books, if they can do it with little input from me and while my youngest allows them some peace to do their work, great. If not then it’s go on ttrs, IDL, power maths, read a book, draw a picture, watch something on tv like maddies do you know? Or educational then they can either write about what they have learnt to video themselves talking about it and upload it to school themselves. I supervise, put don’t police them. If they need help they ask or help each other out. We don’t have a set routine just do what they have been told by the teachers or what they feel like doing. As long as we have something to turn in I’m happy, though there are days there is nothing but ttrs & IDL.

OverTheRainbowLiesOz · 09/01/2021 18:50

People saying that plans should have been in place to nump to online learning are deluded.

The school system has been buckling for years. Teachers were already working nights and weekends to keep up with the ever increasing demands. There's been NO time to plan for contingency work.

Yes exactly. This is all working on good will of teachers. Constantly planning and re-planning at last minute. The good will to pay for - laptop, computer, photocopying, books, stationery, phone calls. Who do you think is paying for it?

Indecisive12 · 09/01/2021 18:54

No live interactive sessions here thankfully. We get 4/5 subjects a day with videos explaining the tasks and work is submitted online with prompt feedback and extra videos to explain if needed.

We wouldn’t be able to fit live videos in, what if we have a meeting at the same time? I know it has been requested of the school but it wouldn’t work for us and it’s working well the way it is for us.

Beline4u · 09/01/2021 19:49

@workyticket I hope you give yourself credit for what you are doing!! I can only imagine the stress teachers are under at the minute!
I really appreciate my kids teachers and I make sure they know it. As I know there are parents (I hate parents WhatsApp groups!!) who refuse to understand how hard they are working!

notevenat20 · 09/01/2021 19:55

I do find it sad how some schools seemingly have to be dragged into providing an education. Our current primary is good but the one we had before is exactly one that would do the minimum it could legally get away with.

My impression is that primary leadership comes in two flavours. Those who passionately believe in the value of education and those that see primary as only for children to learn to socialise before they start education in secondary school.

OverTheRainbowLiesOz · 09/01/2021 19:57

The leadership does make a difference but then some schools face massive challenges compared to others.

notevenat20 · 09/01/2021 20:02

If I could start my time again I would ask "What do you regard the most important years for education to be?" at the primary school visits.

OverTheRainbowLiesOz · 09/01/2021 20:20

Best indicator - staff retention rate.

GracefulDroid · 09/01/2021 21:03

4 lessons a day, not live, set on Google classroom. its taking her about 4 hours to complete under my supervision. Its killing me, im getting barely anything else done each day. Shes 8.

noblegiraffe · 09/01/2021 21:19

Don’t do 4 hours a day with an 8 year old, GracefulDroid, that’s more than they’d be doing at school, regardless of what Gavin says.

Either ditch some of the tasks or do some of it to a lower standard.

notevenat20 · 09/01/2021 21:58

@noblegiraffe You still have to entertain your 8 year old the rest of the day whether there is school work or not.

notevenat20 · 09/01/2021 22:00

Best indicator - staff retention rate

You could well be right. Although a very good primary head locally said they like to have newly trained teachers as they are cheaper. I have no idea how they persuade them to move on after a few years.

noblegiraffe · 09/01/2021 22:11

[quote notevenat20]@noblegiraffe You still have to entertain your 8 year old the rest of the day whether there is school work or not.[/quote]
Indeed, and sticking them on Roblox is far easier than trying to get them to write a science fact file and means you can get on with your own job.

From experience.

JaninaDuszejko · 10/01/2021 08:34

People saying that plans should have been in place to nump to online learning are deluded.

The school system has been buckling for years. Teachers were already working nights and weekends to keep up with the ever increasing demands. There's been NO time to plan for contingency work.

Plans should have been in place but the fact that they are not is the government's fault, not schools or teachers fault, they've been treated appalling by the government. The government should have been throwing money at state schools for the last year to facilitate the continuation of face to face education and to provide distance learning where required. They should have expanded the number and size of classrooms (portacabins would have been fine) and brought as many ex teachers back into the system as possible, bought a ton of devices for ECV children so they could learn from home, etc etc. There's no excuse for the way schools have been treated by the government.

I'm in the pharmaceutical industry, we obviously have a lot more money sloshing around anyway and have invested masses ourselves and been recruiting like crazy but there has been a lot of government money and facilitation as well, e.g. Covid projects have been dealt with so quickly by the MHRA, EMA and FDA. It's why there are now two or three vaccines approved inso many countries.

MarchingOnTogether · 10/01/2021 16:32

One in primary and one in secondary.
Neither get any live lessons.
Primary a weeks worth of work is set and we have to get on with it. Last lockdown there was no requirement to do any of it but this time they have said they expected the children to be completing the work set.
Secondary have lessons in real time but nothing is "live". Teachers are generally on their computers and available to answer the students questions by email but they aren't doing live lessons. I think they tried last lockdown (my eldest is only y7 sonhe was still in primary then) but they changed to this system which was preferred by most parents.

grandehorizontale · 10/01/2021 16:36

Can you help me? I am divorced. I have a 14 year old. I still work between 8 am and 4 pm. My ex said that because I am not at home to supervise the home schooling of my 14 year old, he should go and stay with him during the week.

How much supervision should a 14 year old need for their school work?

Should they just get on with their school work?

There are some direct lessons of course.

Any views?

GH