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.

No "live" interaction at all. Worksheets out on Teams and that's it.

Not even had an email from the school informing us what is happening with school closures etc.

We are in Wales

Secondary or primary?
I teach secondary and we are doing a full live timetable. It takes enormous amounts of prep and admin, and it unsustainable as many of us have our own children. I'm not sure that expecting teenagers to learn just as before, but online, is realistic either. The amount of individual queries before and after lessons too...
My kids are primary. They have nothing live thanks goodness. They seem to have a maths, English and another task each day. Sensible.

I'm really unhappy with our school - only 1hr live per week. Hasn't happened yet, but the schedule they provided us with said it would be the teacher reading a story. (DC is Year 3.)
All the rest is left up to the parents to be the 'teacher'.

No live interaction thus far. Daily videos setting out expectations for the day, slides demonstrating what should be done and worksheets.

Oh this is a new one today. The teacher can’t be bothered to mark the maths so she’s uploaded all the answers on the Google docs and the kids mark it themselves. DS massively stressed now as he can’t get back in to his document. FFS this is ridiculous.

Live teaching is hard to schedule as you need to ensure there a no clashes with other year groups (not everyone has a device per child, especially if one is also being used for home working) and teachers also have kids in the classroom at the same time! Well done to any teachers managing that!

Pre-recorded video/narrated PowerPoints should be a minimum imo. I'd expect shorter lessons for primary, there's enough evidence that adults find zoom calls more tiring than the same length of time spent in a live meeting so not sure how long a primary pupil could concentrate for!

@Delatron

Oh this is a new one today. The teacher can’t be bothered to mark the maths so she’s uploaded all the answers on the Google docs and the kids mark it themselves. DS massively stressed now as he can’t get back in to his document. FFS this is ridiculous.

I can go one better.

DCs sat assessments in class in December- unless they were off. Marks recorded on SIMs. Teacher uploaded assessment paper on goggle classroom asking anyone who didn’t do it in class to complete it under exam conditions then mark it with the answers he has also provided! And inform him of their grade so he can record on SIMs that’s fair

Why on earth would a teacher be marking maths questions? Presumably pupils are perfectly capable of ticking and crossing?

Wow @YouBoughtMeAWall what a shambles...

All the rest is left up to the parents to be the 'teacher'.
You’re doing all the planning and preparation then are you? And splitting yourself between the children in school and the children at home and your own children? And all the rest of the relentless tasks that come with being a teacher?
Trust me, you’re really not doing ‘all the rest’.

I appreciate parents have been thrown in the deep end and it’s absolutely shit, but we’re in a pandemic and we all just have to try our best.

None

So now marking isn’t part of the teacher’s job either...

I’m just criticising one school here. DS1’s school
Is amazing. He’s had a full timetable of lessons with interaction. Even after school activities. He’s happy and engaged.

It’s the disparity that is frustrating.

The teacher can’t be bothered to mark the maths so she’s uploaded all the answers on the Google docs and the kids mark it themselves.

Do you know that children mark their own answers in school all the time? Studies have shown that it has more impact than the teacher marking them. But yes, you’re right, it’s probably that the teacher ‘can’t be bothered’.

So now marking isn’t part of the teacher’s job either...

You want the full classroom experience? Kids mark their own maths work. It’s not rocket science.

My understanding is that feedback is quite an important element of learning and improving? It's more than just ticking and crossing isn't it?

So you want teachers to teach ALL the kids and school and ALL the kids at home all day, at the same time? okkkaaaayyyyy.

My understanding is that feedback is quite an important element of learning and improving?

Indeed, and marked maths work can be looked over by a teacher to provide feedback.

It doesn’t have to be every piece of work either.

No live learning at all.
Everything is just reliant upon parents printing out worksheets and supervising learning. I’m done with it already

Year. 3&5 here , each get a 30 minute zoom call per day then the rest is tasks via dojo that they have to complete and submit . We had a terrible day yesterday . Better today but I'm stuck just sat watching them else they do nothing .
It's going to be a long 6 weeks .

I'll add another job teaching staff are doing for our most disadvantaged students and families. Driving around in the evening delivering learning packs to families who cannot access physical school, do not have adequate devices or internet connectivity and cannot afford to print off worksheets. We also do this so we can see everyone is ok and pick up completed work to mark - if we posted the work this wouldn't be possible.
As we're this a special school, students are spread across more than one county and this can take time! Sending - this isn't easy for anyone

Nope, Noble is right. The marking part is pretty much ticking and crossing and is what we would be doing in school. We would then ask students how they were performing and gather feedback about where the mistakes are being made. This is where you should be looking, not at who is marking the work, but is there an opportunity to revisit the questions that they do get wrong and figure out why?

Providing answers that the kids mark themselves - self assessment, is totally normal

@noblegiraffe

So now marking isn’t part of the teacher’s job either...

You want the full classroom experience? Kids mark their own maths work. It’s not rocket science.

Did has always marked her own work, right from primary, we've had multiple dramas over the green inked pens required for the process over the years.

Newsflash: green ink bics not always that easy to get and no other colour would do apparently

Teachers can't physically be in two places at once though!

You can't complain about secondary teachers being at home, teaching live online lessons whilst TAs look after the keyworkers kids...

... and then simultaneously complain that the primary teachers, who are having to look after the keyworkers kids, aren't giving live lessons to those at home.

My dd in reception has 5 15 mins live learning sessions with things to do in between.
The teacher is live all day (apart from lunch time) if you need anything.
My year 1 has live learning pretty much all day, with 10 min breaks between each lesson and an hour lunch.
Also the school was out delivering home packs for all pupils.
Bloody brilliant school, they were fab during the first lockdown as well.