Teachers, What percent of your class are doing the home learning?

[RosieLemonade]

And are you worried it will peter out to nothing? I teach in a very poor area. A lot of my class have laptops provided by the school which is helpful. But the engagement is low. Some days are better than others. Zoom lessons have about 75% but then hardly any hand in the work. What is it like at your school?

State secondary. Sixth form students have 100% engagement. Y9-11 about 80%attendance, with about 70% completing all work set.

Parent perspective. My son is still in KS1 so all the admin of handing in work falls on me. I really tried for the first week but it's a massive admin pain and I am putting the energy and time available into doing the work rather than evidencimg and writing up that he has done it. Our school doesn't mark or assess home learning; during lockdown 1 there was daily feedback from his class's TA or teacher which kept him connected to school but this time they have so many KWV kids in, the feedback is being written once a week by a random person he's never met and it isn't conveying much. So I have lost momentum for turning all the work in. He is, however, doing reading, maths and writing daily and pursuing wider curriculum interests. This might not always be exactly the set task, though. I am taking the view that at 6, and with all the stress of the current situation, it's better he is learning SOMETHING willingly, rather than refusing and avoiding the set work while everyone screams and yells at each other. He is engaging with learning every day.

[quote LarryUnderwood]@Soontobe60 yes we can. It's not a tech issue, it's a time/organisation/memory issue. We can uoad photos of work via an app (its a pain trying to transfer photos to laptops to upload via Google classroom). We're coordinating 4 live sessions per day (2 per kid) plus 4 plus pieces of work each done on paper/worksheets/in a workbook, mealtimes, getting outside for some fresh air, breaking up the inevitable fights, and both working full time. So then at the end of the day sorting through the piles of paper and scanning it all, then uploading to the app and then relaying the comments to/from kid and teacher (app is on phone so kids don't have direct access). I just haven't been organised enough to do it. Individually its all doable but put it all together and I'm just completely overwhelmed.[/quote]
If you have a mobile, you can get classroom on your phone (I have myself logged in as DD2 & DD3, I just switch between them). Then you don't have to transfer photos to the laptop. Also, Adobe Scan is free and great for taking lots of scans just like a photo - it will save all the pages in one document as a PDF, then you can just upload that.

Another parent perspective- we are only getting recorded videos and they are shit and turning off my children who love learning. So we are increasingly using paid tuition (tutors for maths and English, Outschool for other subjects) and focusing less on what school put out.

My children love learning but without any live interaction whatsoever they are just switching off from their school teachers.

@Lougle ha ha I tried getting Google classroom on my phone. Something in the security settings either in the way ots been set up, or in my phone, means I can only install it via a work profile 0n my phone. But I already have a work profile - for my work. Cue me trying to install last week and accidentally deleting my real work profile, which has caused me a load of other issues.

Its really not an issue of scanning and uploading being difficult, it's just priorities. And so far, it hasn't been our priority. We're focused on actually getting them to do the work. And then uploading as and whe we have the time (or remember).

When I say install it, I mean the settings when I try to log in using my kids' accounts say it can only be accessed by creating a secure profile on my phone.

Parent Perspective.
My ks2 aged children are doing 100% of their work every day because I'm on furlough so have the time to make sure it's completed.
We don't have any live lessons so every thing has to be photographed and emailed across at the end of the day. I find this the most tedious part of the day if I'm honest.
In lockdown 1 we only had to send if a few examples of work once a week but the every day emails is getting boring.

Attendance is 100% all have video cameras and interact -all complete the work -indep school

Parent perspective. It's all being done at the moment. I can't imagine this continuing after half term as enthusiasm for it will tail off. I have a year 6 abs a year 10.

@LarryUnderwood I can just plug my phone into the laptop using the usb charging cable and the phone appears as a folder you can upload the file directly. But I realise a work phone might have additional security.

75% KS4
50% KS3
We're not a core subject and I think KS3 are just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I'm hoping it may improve.

My kids are KS1. Attendance in their zoom lessons (half an hour twice a day) has dropped to about 8 kids. I'd guess 8 may be in school which leaves another 8 or 10 AWOL. We're struggling even though I only work part time. They're being asked to do up to 15 different tasks a day and need on to one support. I'm not sure how long I can keep going.

I’m a teacher and we’re doing a live lesson each morning plus videos for anyone who might miss it and tasks via google classroom. There are about 6 kids out of 23 who are missing out on some or most of the 6 core tasks we set for lit and num each week. Last lockdown, some families started really well and then enthusiasm petered out. Which is understandable. But I am worried for these kids who aren’t competing core things already.

I can see it from the flip side too though, my kids go to the school I work at. I find the live lessons stressful and intrusive (as a parent). They take up a lot of time and they haven’t actually achieved a task by the time the session finishes. Feedback on Googleclassroom has to be sought out instead of pinging up in a feed, so it feels a bit like submitting the work to the void, even though teachers are giving feedback. I have to manage the time to do 18 different learning tasks each week in total, including tech support, while looking after a toddler and doing my own work. I’m finding it hard. I’m trying hard not to look ahead and wonder how I’m going to sustain this.

Not a teacher but Legal Guardian to my two nephews, twins in Y8 - Both working to different timetables annoyingly but their school provides 4 out of 5 live lessons a day probably 20mins a lesson then 30mins working themselves.

Their internet is blocked at school times except the sites they need, iPhones have Screen Time parental controls imposed too.

Might seem a little OTT but they need to try their best and I cannot monitor them all the time, all webcams have to be turned off for data usage reasons so they could just join the class and continue playing games - and they did for the first week.

I WFH Self Employed for 8yrs and started up another company back in 2019/2020 as my SE business has to end this April.

I probably spend 1-2hours at the end of the day checking their work and helping on some questions they might not understand and making sure they submit it. They did try the we've done it all but in reality they just copied some of the work and missed out majority of questions.

Overall they seem to understand, schools might be closed to them but they are still open and working full timetables - Working from home gives a lot of freedom but end of the day you've still got to get your work done to an acceptable standard, the sooner the DC have this mindset the better I think. Especially as this looks like its going to go on for a few months now.

It just took some planning and takes an hour or so of my time every day. Blocking their internet for everything except school was the real big winner IMO.

Seems to be around 15-20 out of 30 pupils per class joining live lessons - Keyworker students at school join the lessons and do the exact same learning with a staff member supervising 15 students in a room.

Thanks for the tech tips. Its really not an issue that uploading itself is a problem. It is the act of sorting through 2 kids work, which is usually in messy piles by the end of the day, or some in the kitchen, some in bedrooms etc. Then photographing it all, then sending it in via whatever means available. Then reviewing comments or ensuring kids view comments. Its not about getting photos to the teachers - that is very simple. Its about being organised enough to do it when there are so many other things to organise.

This thread makes me feel incredibly guilty that I'm working full time out of the home and so my son has to do everything with no parental support.

Larryunderwood I feel exactly the same as you. It's added stress and hassle on top of actually getting kids work done, my own work done, plus feed everyone etc. Not enough hours in the day.

@LarryUnderwood oh to have 5 minutes just to get organised. We are drowning in random sheets and bit of paper.

Don’t feel guilty. I’m a teacher and I’m doing the same. My kids all me for help with their lessons and I say, I’m sorry, I can’t help you right now, I’m at work, I’ll help you when I’m on break. Then I go back to work helping other people’s kids with their school work. It’s hard, but we do what we do because we have to put food on the table.

i'm not teacher but my kids say 100% of their class attend and hand in work but they are private schools.

@Margotshypotheticaldog

Larryunderwood I feel exactly the same as you. It's added stress and hassle on top of actually getting kids work done, my own work done, plus feed everyone etc. Not enough hours in the day.

Exactly. If school chase us i will absolutely respond. And we are trying to submit work when we can. But I'm not going to faff about taking photos of the lego model victorian workhouse, or the 'extreme reading challenge' when its taken hours to get them to do the bloody thing in the first place and now I have to cook dinner and put them to bed and then log into work again at night to make up for all the time I spent watching a slideshow about Oliver Twist to help DS do a mind map! I know the school staff are all working so hard, and I would never complain to them. Its just a shit situation for everyone. But it isn't possible to do everything and I've just decided that if the work isn't marked when it's uploaded then I'm not going to put pressure on myself to get it done.

Our school has no online zoom calls - it doesn't work, they say. Most of the work is really repetitious and monotonous. We can't upload everyday as that's too annoying for the teachers as there are alerts so can only do it two days a week. We work full-time at home. I do my best but my kids are bored rigid (1 x white rose print out every day, write out your spelling ten times etc) and the rules around everything are really convoluted (not clear where we are supposed to upload, titles are misleading). I'm not suggesting all schools are like this but in our case, I think a few key changes and engagement would go through the roof. We do the best we can (probably 90% completion) but I feel like it's harder to navigate than it needs to be.

My youngest in year 6 gets 2 half hours a week on zoom. The rest of the work is set on seesaw which is a nightmare to use. Very little feedback It’s so hard keeping kids engaged.

And we have to mark the maths. The answers appear on a different day....so you have to do maths, wait for the day the answers appear, then upload on one of the days we are allowed to upload on.....

Parent here with Y2 child. We are doing the set work, but the quality is not as high as it should be as DS is not motivated. There is a prerecorded video for each subject which is tedious and boring. Unfortunately a lot of the tastes are contained within the videos so we can't really skip them.

I teach in a special school. Of the 13 activities I uploaded to Google classroom last weekend, over half have been ignored by everyone. None of the others has had more than 2 children (out of 7 in the class) access it. Live lessons have been a little more successful - I think every child except one has accessed at least one live lesson (we put on two per day). It is a bit worrying - I know a couple of them are doing other meaningful stuff with their parents, but others are not engaging in anything beyond TV/repetitive play with their preferred toys.