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.

@52andblue does he have a school email ?

Lack of teacher interaction and marking/feedback is generally a concern for me.'I appreciate the pressures on time but how can future lessons be planned without knowing if any child has understood the current ones?

Primary reception and year 2. Full online lessons 8.45 till 3.15, with regular screen breaks.
Teachers working online from home, (TA's in school supervising the key worker children access the online lessons)

@YouBoughtMeAWall

In our school the key worker children are sat in front of the computer with headphones participating in the live meetings. There is an adult in the room to supervise (not teaching staff).

No live interaction. Just tasks to complete on Google Classroom and Busythings platform.

@Whatdidisay

Primary reception and year 2. Full online lessons 8.45 till 3.15, with regular screen breaks. Teachers working online from home, (TA's in school supervising the key worker children access the online lessons)

That’s pretty good. How are they finding it?

Setting work each day via school app. 2 x worship assemblies per week. 1 morning and 1 afternoon zoom to check in and reflect on work completed and if we encountered any issues and kids get to chat. As far as I'm aware there are no taught lessons being planned online.

Please don't complain to Ofsted and make it worse for teachers as they are being treated as expendable during the pandemic. What age are your kids?

They are being really good, the year two is having to go it alone in the office though as the reception child needs constant help obviously!
I really can't fault the school they are doing a great job but it is relentless and I've no time to do anything else! (Poor dog want a good walk!)

None. Seriously you are very lucky. I wouldn't be on here whinging about it.

In our school the key worker children are sat in front of the computer with headphones participating in the live meetings. There is an adult in the room to supervise (not teaching staff).

This is how I imagined it. All children following the same live teaching on a device, or if not live all getting the same work and level of teacher interaction.

Sorry, I know this is the fail but they are encouraging parents to report if they feel their school isn’t doing enough.

Not sure how I feel about it it though

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9120539/Coronavirus-lockdown-UK-Parents-urged-report-childs-school-Ofsted.html

Zéro live interaction at all. I'm less than impressed.

We get one 30 minute live class a day (yr5) and a ten minute live catch up a day (reception). This is great to keep the kids in the loop with others. Appreciate it’s hard for the teachers but they’re doing a great job. The tricky bit for us (as for most parents) is working and trying to manage their learning at the same time! I’ve organised a few zoom sessions for my eldest to chat with his mates which he has loved and give him a massive boost. The interaction is really important.

Teachers and schools are in an absolutely impossible situation. They cannot please everyone. Particularly at primary, where focus and engagement aren't guaranteed from small kids with short attention spans and difficulty with devices. They cannot provide the same teaching as in a classroom. They cannot have everyone in a classroom. They cannot supervise the ones in the classroom and also answer questions/emails/be available online. People baying for more/different/less/different. The government and DfE has managed to make it even worse than last time for many. But what did everyone expect, realistically?

I’ve been impressed with my DC school (reception and yr 2) this time. Lockdown 1 was a joke, a few twinkl sheets uploaded weekly, no contact. But reception gets a live story time and some fun ‘work’ set online. Year 2 have 3 live lessons 9am, 10am and 11am doing the core subjects and the stuff uploaded online to do flows from the live lessons. The lessons aren’t for the whole hour, the teacher will explain things and go through some examples in the live then we go off and try it independently then come back for the next live if that makes sense? Afternoon is story time plus any independent learning if you wish. They’re actually marking work if you email it. My son loves the live learning seeing his teachers and the other children although today only 12 children were in the session for the whole year group. They’re providing printed versions for people who don’t have online access. They put the plans for this in place back in September so they’ve been very organised and jumped straight into it this week.
Some of the provision sounds absolutely pathetic from some schools and there’s no excuse now. They should have the plans in place for home learning now.

You do realise that live lessons are a safeguarding risk.
Firstly, there's the whole any adult that lives with the teacher could walk in and see names etc. Admittedly teachers are so heavily vetted that's a low one, but considering they're not even allowed to take data home to do reports it takes the biscuit.
The real safeguarding concern is that if teacher's wireless drops out you have a group of kids who could say/do anything totally unsupervised.
Nevermind that teaching is a dynamic job. It's not just do a ted talk for 6 hours you know and research shows directed learning is better than teacher talk. Make a complaint to Ofsted and you'll look an absolute fool. Especially as there is currently no guidance from them on teaching standards in the pandemic.

Sounds to me like you just want a moan.

P.s DH is working 8am to 9pm in primary and as a result ds in bed when he finishes. No live lessons because they're ineffective. Still think he's not working hard enough?

I'd be very surprised if a secondary student couldn't contact their teacher at all. Are they using Teams? My sixth form students contact me constantly using Teams chat or by email, and I reply basically straight away if I'm not live teaching. Do you not have email addresses for teachers? Look on the school website. But how is the work being set, and submitted?

My cousin and her husband are both secondary teachers, both teaching live lessons to exam (hollow laugh) yeargroups and recording 20-30 minute teaching per one hour ten minute lesson for all other yeargroups. They have a PC at home, so one is teaching from there while the other goes into school and teaches from a classroom there.

They have three generally well-behaved, reasonably motivated children - Y6, Y9 and Y12. They each have a mix of live and asynchronous recorded lessons all day (three different schools). Each child has their own tablet.

This is a family that values education and has the tech hardware to support it. The teacher parents teach at, and their children go to, schools that are providing the level of live teaching that you appear to be wanting. All good.

BUT..

They live rurally and the broadband, despite adding boosters etc, can't reliably cope with more than two live streams at a time so they are constantly on go-slow or stop. The teacher parent's teaching has to be prioritised so the children can't all attend their live lessons or even access the asynchronous teaching except on a rota through into the evening. Their downstairs is fully open-plan so it isdifficult for them to all work live in the same area anyway.

The children can't attend school in person because the primary is full for key worker/ vulnerable pupils and the older pupils are not eligible as they have a parent at home and the appropriate tech.

The kids are already frustrated and not happy.

My point is that even with an almost ideal situation, live lessons are not always the answer. Add in not having appropriate hardware, less motivated children, younger children, children who require support from an adult to log-on / off or to access the work etc. etc... There are no easy answers to this, and what would work for your family and your child is different for every family and child.

@TheBuffster

You do realise that live lessons are a safeguarding risk. Firstly, there's the whole any adult that lives with the teacher could walk in and see names etc. Admittedly teachers are so heavily vetted that's a low one, but considering they're not even allowed to take data home to do reports it takes the biscuit. The real safeguarding concern is that if teacher's wireless drops out you have a group of kids who could say/do anything totally unsupervised. Nevermind that teaching is a dynamic job. It's not just do a ted talk for 6 hours you know and research shows directed learning is better than teacher talk. Make a complaint to Ofsted and you'll look an absolute fool. Especially as there is currently no guidance from them on teaching standards in the pandemic.

Sounds to me like you just want a moan.

P.s DH is working 8am to 9pm in primary and as a result ds in bed when he finishes. No live lessons because they're ineffective. Still think he's not working hard enough?

I don’t want live lessons for primary but

You do realise that live lessons are a safeguarding risk is no longer true? As other schools are doing this

Plus there is now guidance for what is expected?

Each of my classes receive 50% of their usual contact time in live lessons per day. So if I normally taught them for 3 hours that day, they get one hour plus set work to cover the other hour.

I'm really happy with ours.
Ds year 6 has live lesson 9-10am then tasks to do in the morning after the lesson then another live lesson 1-2pm same as morning. Online tasks are marked and commented on, written ones they photograph and put on the class blog or email to teacher.
He also has tt rockstars, purple mash tasks and a literacy one to do daily but these are more like ganes/races/challenges and he can do as much or little as he likes.

Dd year 8 follows her normal timetable. Some are live lessons, some are a piece of work that's set online. About 50/50. They're marked and commented on.

That should say 2 hours not three.

our primary has no live interaction at all!!! again..

Also, 3-5 hours per day is ridiculous at primary school level! Unless you're at a private school (this amount is still ridiculous either way) no child should be sitting and learning for 5 hours! The actual active learning time is considerably less. Most of that time is classroom management and when some kids are finished they get free play/chill time.

My DD6 (year 1) is set tasks which are roughly 20-30 minutes a piece, 4/5 tasks per day, 1 will have an additional optional task. We still need to do the usual maths app and spelling app and reading. Thats no more than 3 hours and it is more than appropriate I feel.

Note: I am a mum who kinda dislikes the state school system so definitely have a bias towards thinking 6 hour days at school are madness. If flexible schooling could be a very long term option I would do it now!

Reception child has a half hour zoom 'lesson' each morning then we do the rest of it throughout the day when it suits (or depending on the child's mood!). Daily phonics, writing and maths tasks all to be video'd or photographed and uploaded to tapestry for teacher to assess and we then get feedback. They also ask that we do some reading for pleasure each day (which we do anyway) and something outdoorsy.

We're dropping off book bags once a week and collecting after the books have been quarantined for a few days the next week so they all have library and new phonics books to work through each week.

I'm really impressed actually it is working very well and giving us some structure. I am saying this with the caveat that I'm a SAHM so I don't have my own work to consider. I can imagine it's much much more of a challenge if you're trying to WFH as the same time!