Can any primary teachers tell me

[Cattitudes]

What actually happens from the school's perspective, the parent perspective and the child if they absolutely refuse to do any work? School are piling on the pressure, he is completely refusing to even look at the work, we are stuck in the middle so tempting to type it in for him .

In case it is relevant- yr6, completed yr6 Maths and English curriculum for 11 plus so not learning anything new, anxiety, very recent bereavement, is engaged in educational pursuits all day, just won't touch school work. Won't zoom school friends but seems generally fairly happy in themselves and with older siblings. We are both full time wfh.

Legally, as far as I understand it, there is nothing that the school can do. They could contact you regularly as they are required to do welfare checks.

However, it would probably be in his best interests to engage as far as possible as it might set a precedent in his mind that he doesn't need to engage in schoolwork.

Why is he not completing schoolwork? What's his attitude like normally at school? Is he getting feedback from his teacher?

I think schools have a legal obligation to check in & ask for work.

Please contact school. I think they would understand. DD got like this by June of last lockdown & she was very down & depressed & anxious by the end of the summer.

It's so sad what is happening to our children. It's like a living nightmare.

I would honestly ask if under the circumstances he could attend school a couple of times a week. Schools can invite children in if they are concerned as long as there is space in their bubble.

No wonder he doesn't want to touch the maths and English. If he's engaged in educational pursuits is he happy to share those with his teacher?

I can't see why school at piling the pressure on. Poor kid. Are you happy with what he's learning?

We departed from the set work during lockdown 1 but as DD was still engaging in work (just not school work), I let school know and carried on. I shared some photos of her work with them iirc.

We were debating this in our staff meeting this week.
Schools are now under pressure to be accountable for pupil engagement in remote learning, so although your son's teachers and SLT will likely understand your predicament, they also need to be seen to be doing something to get him to access the learning opportunities made available to him online. This could either be something that might work in your favour, such as offering him a place in school if at all possible; not on account of his 'non-compliance', but more likely vulnerability, or perhaps providing you with printed work in case he finds online work overwhelming. On the other hand, it may be that you receive increasingly insistent phone calls or get "door-stepped" by leadership seeking to persuade your DS to engage.

It is a really rubbish situation, and I wish you good luck.

We don't really want him in school, due to risks, he and dh are prone to chest infections so we do all we can to limit contact. School is full anyway. He has said that even if he went in he wouldn't do the work, it is frustrating because if he just sat down and did it, it would probably only take him 5 mins to do an hour of work because he wouldn't bother with the videos. He was so bored last term, they are still doing some yr5 work. They have said that they cannot differentiate for him either in school or in home/ online work. In our minds for him at this stage school has one purpose, to socialise, that can't happen in any normal way at the moment.

He is currently helping his sister with GCSE (ha ha) revision and loving the extra challenge. He comes away enthusiastic and buzzing with knowledge. He reads his books, is learning new languages. It is totally the right environment for him at home for now. In the broader sense it is also educationally more appropriate because it has brought back his love of learning. He will not then engage with learning about the difference between a numerator and a denominator or how to spell a word which he could spell in yr3. I do totally get that he is in a fortunate position academically and I would rather that any effort the school make goes into those children who really need help and support. He doesn't.

He hates the platform they use (fortunately different to secondary school). He lost so much work on there in the first lockdown, it is awkward uploading stuff, you can't copy and paste stuff within the package so need to go back to check what the questions are. He will not touch it now. He says the program just 'takes him back to the dark places of the first lockdown'. Any work he does do we have to print out for him and then upload. He does the very bare minimum, give him a closed question and he will give a Y/N answer- Can you do x,y,z? No. He is not like this at all in school. He does say that he spends lots of time in school waiting for others to finish but he is not particularly challenging other than he will point out errors his teacher makes, he says she has told them to, but that does make me cringe.

He is asking to leave school, but I worry that if it reopens in March or April (which I really hope it does for everyone's sanity) then he will regret not being able to spend time with his friends. I want him to go through as near as possible that yr6 leaving experience. I realise that sounds a bit crazy and selfish that I want him to go back to school so he can leave. Class is already over PAN so if he leaves he won't get back in. I think he will be bored here when it is just me working from home all day.

@AdultHumanFemale that’s interesting. Our online learning has got a whole lot better for the children as a whole - can’t fault the effort and content) but I cant help thinking that if I tailored my sons learning to the areas he struggled in it would be so much better for him and he (yr 5) is so bored with the stuff that’s too easy (some things, like science, are a 2 min video). There is very little writing work, and that is where he needs practice, but once we’ve got through all the lessons he’s had enough! I did explore permanent home learning before this pandemic and remember some schools allowed children to only partially attend school. Is this correct? My son wants to continue homeschooling through to year 7.

If he is asking to leave school and not necessarily getting anything educational out of school, then I think it is worth thinking seriously about deregistering him.

I agree that school is likely to reopen in March, but it may not be school as normal and many of the y6 leavers events eg the residential may not be able to happen. Others, like leavers assembly may not be able to happen as normal.

School will be obliged to keep chasing for work and engagement. It sounds like a stressful situation all round, so why not just remove the source of stress?

Honestly, I think he seems to be the one in charge here. You say he’s very bright but youre also saying he finds the platform hard to use and you have to print off and upload stuff for him.
I’d be setting him a daily timetable and tell him you expect him to follow it. He does nothing until he’s completed his work for the day. Don’t then spend time going over the work he has done - leave that for his teacher. If he thinks he can pick and choose what he gets to do at 11, hows he going to be when he’s 14?
I appreciate the work may not be very stimulating, but he also needs to know that in the real world of adulthood he wont get to pick and choose what his employers want him to do.
Your alternative is to off roll him and completely home school him. But as you’ve said then you’d have to re apply for his place after lockdown and he may not get it back.

Have you had an honest conversation with the school? Have they offered him any help?

Personally I’d probably ring the GP to chat about the anxiety and then I’d tell school he is off sick ( due to bereavement and anxiety). I guess it might mean you have to ring in sick each day but it gives you some breathing space ( and tbh it does sound like he is struggling). After a couple of weeks see how he feels about re - engaging and make a decision then? It gives you all a bit of time and isn’t as huge a decision as deregistering. We might also have a bit better idea by then about what the time frames re return to school are looking like.

Schools do have a responsibility re work and ‘absent’ kids but they shouldn’t be pushing mentally vulnerable children to do work - so I would also have a Frank conversation with them ( and they may be able to access some help, although services are stretched).

He would do nothing if we said he had to do work first, we had this in the last lockdown and honestly with both of us working full time in demanding critical jobs we don't have time to stand over him for hours watching him do nothing. The world of work is years away and he may well head into a job such as mine where I have a lot of autonomy. He would prefer to sit and do nothing all day at home than engage. The use of the platform is because of anxiety not ability. Anyway my question is not about how I should manage my son but what legally the school can do.

His secondary school will be much more tailored to children of his ability so I am not too worried about how he will react when back in a classroom. Other than being bored he had no difficulty getting back into school routine last time and we (with the school's blessing) ditched the online learning very early on and he did differentiated work which we provided. I guess our question is what has changed in terms of demands from the school's perspective between April when it was fine for him to follow his own timetable and now when it clearly is not. The school helped to open the Pandora's box.

Obviously it depends on the child but I have a younger primary child (year 4) who has anxiety. One of the ways I (now!) realise it manifests itself is in trying to ‘control’ the environment and school work and becoming increasingly defiant. So he may genuinely need some help with the anxiety/bereavement ( or maybe just some time - sometimes I think I we expect more from our kids than we do from adults in dealing with loss). You obviously know your child best so I’d go with what you think re creating him some structure if it would be helpful.

Talk to the teacher. I have a very bright year 6 who is just "ticking over" with a higher level maths book we sent them and a project they are doing on mechanics. I'd ask if he can do something similar. They are posting me project updates and it looks amazing!

Honestly I would just tell him he needs to do it. You are in charge. He is the child.
Is it that you are actually facilitating his refusal?

On your specific point re what has changed - the curriculum is no longer suspended ( it was in April). So it is true schools now have obligations to ensure children are learning and engaging with the curriculum. Basically the same as if they were in school and a child just wasn’t turning up.

However as I mentioned that doesn’t mean they don’t take the same approach to children who may be having whatever difficulties. So I would raise those with the school.

Cattitudes
I would be more concerned that he is refusing to work just because he basically thinks it is boring and he can't be bothered to use the platform and learn how to upload his work. Given that he does what he is told at school, it seems that he knows he gets away with this at home. I think you are setting yourself up for problems later on. If you can't get an 11 year old to do any of his work, how will it be when he is older and decides he doesn't need to do this or that piece of work?

@cattitudes your child sounds gifted and I know that’s tough for them mentally as they have a different way of seeing the world. My older son 14 yrs is like this and feels learning is just going through the motions. He studies philosophy, economics and history in his spare time lol but that does not always translate academically and in some areas (he finds pointless and are subjects he will drop soon) he fails. He does the homeschooling though as he doesn’t want to appear badly behaved. BUT even gifted children fail as sometimes academics is different from education, if that makes sense. We have a lot of conversation as to why school is important, and for my son at least the socialisation, discipline, etc is an education in itself.
My son has had online therapy and the change has been incredible! If you can do it I highly recommend it. It just gives them a different perspective on a very confusing time.

I think forcing him to do this work if he is bored by it is a terrible idea. You will end up with a bright child who completely disengages and that will have knock on impact on school attitude just as he goes into teenage years. There is plenty of time to learn about the pressures of adult life - at least in a boring job you get paid!

The failure here is with the school not providing adequately differentiated work for their bright pupils. l would be saying to the school that if they can’t differentiate his work adequately, then they are not meeting his educational needs and so he won’t be completing it. Or just a couple of basics a day where you support with the uploading.

In the meantime, think about ways he can evidence the work he is doing. Anything that is written, put it on their online system. Set him some questions based on his sister’s GCSE work and upload the answers. Record him speaking other languages if possible etc. Give them something to evidence that he is learning at least. They may not be happy with this - but just the act of offering to do this may get them off your back!

As a school, no, there’s not much they can do other than continue to push for engagement.

It’s odd that they say they can’t differentiate.

If he’s doing work set by you at GCSE level, I’d provide evidence of that instead. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to see his attainment is so much higher than they cater for.

Is the platform just used for uploading the work?

If so can he just create work on Spark video, iMovie, pic collage or word linked to the daily lessons and you upload it to his online platform later in the day. At least then he can prove to school that some learning is taking place and he might enjoy the different ways of presenting his work. My DS really enjoys putting his research onto an iMovie or spark video.

He will work when challenged, he just doesn't see the point in learning stuff he already knows. We have asked the school for differentiated work and it is a definite no. We give them a log of everything that he is covering but what they really want is evidence that he has practised two different ways to learn how to spell because. The school have admitted that he has completed the year 6 curriculum. I do totally understand that they do not want to spend time setting different work for him in the current situation, we are happy to find work for him. At the moment he is happy working with his sisters learning new stuff for about 5 hrs a day.

I think it's very telling he's said he wouldn't work even if he was in school.

Why is he showing such little respect at home and at school?

I think deregistering until the end of the year is a good idea.

He might be academically bright but it seems like he’s still got a lot of learning to do about showing respect for adults/school and managing the demands of a curriculum. You’d be better off using the rest of Y6 teaching him that, because he won’t do well in secondary with the attitude that he doesn’t have to do something just because he doesn’t see the point.

@Cattitudes

He would do nothing if we said he had to do work first, we had this in the last lockdown and honestly with both of us working full time in demanding critical jobs we don't have time to stand over him for hours watching him do nothing. The world of work is years away and he may well head into a job such as mine where I have a lot of autonomy. He would prefer to sit and do nothing all day at home than engage. The use of the platform is because of anxiety not ability. Anyway my question is not about how I should manage my son but what legally the school can do.

His secondary school will be much more tailored to children of his ability so I am not too worried about how he will react when back in a classroom. Other than being bored he had no difficulty getting back into school routine last time and we (with the school's blessing) ditched the online learning very early on and he did differentiated work which we provided. I guess our question is what has changed in terms of demands from the school's perspective between April when it was fine for him to follow his own timetable and now when it clearly is not. The school helped to open the Pandora's box.

Honestly, if my youngest DC had done their 11 plus already I would be deregistering. It's soul destroying doing boring work and struggling with a clunky system. I would discuss this with him and ask him to come up with his own timetable. The risks are that a) he isn't able to engage with a normal school curriculum in September when he goes to secondary b) he becomes more isolated as he isn't part of a peer group and c) that you have to have him at home during the summer term if the schools go back again. But on the other hand, this could go on for a very long time and if he is stuck at home getting anxious about being forced to do soul destroying work, that is a risk in itself.

Academically he doesn't have a problem, does he, just needs more challenging work, which you could try asking the school about. The work being sent is not stimulating or challenging him at all. Come year 7 and secondary school things should change in any case. Hopefully the school he goes to will provide sufficient academic challenges and competition from peers. Meanwhile, it sounds like he is engaging with learning at an appropriate level at home, so I wouldn't worry.
Attitude wise, however, I would be worried. Do you think there may be mental health issues as you mentioned a bereavement? If so, I'd be addressing these. This disdain of authority, which may just be a sign of self confidence and sense of his own autonomy, may not augur well for future schooling, as he will need to conform to be accepted, and you don' t want him to go "off the rails" as a teenager.