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?

Hello,

I am from Latvia and I am a teacher at a State school. Here all schools work distant as corona virus spreads out really fast. I think till spring it will be so.

@LadyCatStark

Not a teacher but just for another point of view, DS’s grammar school has 100% of children on every Teams lesson and approx 2-3 who don’t have their work in on time but I think it’s more to do with lack of organisation in using the teams app so missing assignments as the children who forgot usually apologise and say they’ll get it done ASAP. Misdemeanours are issued if work is not completed but they do seem to be issuing reminders first. There’s going to be a big gap between children when this is all over. Interestingly, school did not ask whether pupils have a computer, they’ve just assumed.

@LadyCatStark how old is your child? I’m just wondering as my child is in state school but is far too young to sit on a computer all day.

But I can add that many lessons are online lessons through ZOOM. I have three kids and two of them are students - 11years and 7 years old. They have online classes every day.

"But as a previous home educator, a lot of the work is not at all sensible for working from home on your own. I'm debating deregistering again to escape the 'class work at home' as it is pretty dull. I feel sorry for teachers as they are out of their comfort zone and the rigidity of the curriculum is making it harder."

This is spot on. I can't do "school at home", the dynamic is different, and the work is dull without live interaction and other children around. I can have a crack at educating my child at home for a bit, but that has to look different from "school at home". I am relieved DS is KS1 at a school which is very flexible and pragmatic about what gets done at home and hos.

*how

My teen has been doing 95 % on zoom.
He point blank refuses to do the online assembly. I've tried everything but decided to pick my battles.

He's quite private so haven't seen all the work. However I've had no emails to say he hasn't and they normally would email immediately if not complete or call me.

He's done some zoom in front of me. And the maximum that's been in a zoom. Class is 6! Out of 16.

He's starting to lack enthusiasm in logging on. Saying well l x, y, z doesn't. And it's soo hard.

@DowntonCrabby

Balls sorry guys wrong thread

🤣🤣🤣 did make me chuckle.

Out of interest - what would actually happens with kids that dont engage?

Totally agree with @LarryUnderwood, from a parent perspective, it is uploading the completed work that is the extra admin task that we struggle with - fortunately we only have to do it for one DC.

We use Google Classroom, and last year had a more tech savvy teacher, so most of the stuff could be completed in a Google doc and handed in at the touch of a button.

This year more stuff needs to be printed out, then needs to be marked by us, then scanned back in.

There is a live class zoom once a day, and we have forgotten that a few times too, when the adult is on another call.

It doesn't sound like much, but it's an extra thing to deal with to a deadline.

I'm sure there are others in the same boat who are engaging and use all their energy on actually ensuring the work is done. DH is great at making time in his full-time working day to upload it too, if it was down to me it would end up looking like Dc was not engaging at all (in fact usually completes nearly every single piece).

The teacher is great at providing personal feedback messages to Dc, so that's good.

@ViveLaCrepe that sounds bad, sorry I've two kids in different state schools (Infants and Juniors) and friends with kids in different primaries locally and they are all doing a mix of live lessons, pre-recorded, phone calls, personalised emails + online platform like Google Classroom / Showbie / Purple Mash / Seesaw etc with lots of support from teachers.

I'd definitely say something to school.

Thanks for the comments.
I taught myself how to use Google classroom and then set myself up as a (home) classroom of one teacher (me) and one student. Each day when I receive the school's email I break it into its various parts and create individual assignments for the day in each subject, with deadlines for completion so that the day has a lesson structure. My child then returns work to me via the same platform with a click of a button in Google docs as another poster mentioned. And then I mark it all and return it electronically so he can see where he's made mistakes and we talk about what we need to work on.

I did this in part because I knew that without any structure the day would slide away and motivation would ebb. And I wanted to make sure my child knows that someone is keeping track, checking his work and giving him feedback so that it all doesn't feel pointless.

But a large part was so that I could offer some positive support for the school in helping them adopt an online classroom platform.

I gently let them know what I have been doing and offered to chat about it or invite them in as administrators to observe how it works. They very politely declined but will remember me if they decide to change how they work.

I should say, I love my son's class teacher, she's superb.
But the administration of the school are disinterested in providing a mechanism or platform for interactive feedback. His teacher presumably can only do what she is able to with the limited tools she is allowed.

So, a daily email via the school secretary it is. No registration. Two class get together zooms a week.
Don't send in any work, it won't be looked at.

Ok so my two (Yr2 and Yr5) have done exactly 0% of their school work so far this week. And I have precisely 0 time or energy to help/nag/encourage...

Companies have dedicated teams people working on IT infrastructure so people can work. Girlfriend is working from home currently, there are technical issues every day. So it follows that without a dedicated platform, problems will arise, and support in the form of checking up 'Oh we're in the same boat' is not helpful'.

Last week, we had technical issues with Power point slides, print and scan work, build a castle out of cereal boxes, make an MTV style video, Joe bloody Wicks. And now we have mental health week, if schools topped the incessant nagging mental health wouldn't be necessary. We certainly don't have hrs to arse about with format problems.

The education dept, unions, schools, and teachers need to give their heads a wobble, the systems are not integrated, nor is the work presented in a deliberate linear order, nor is it suitable for home learning or easy to navigate.
It's shite.

I would say my yr 4 son is doing most of his work, it probably isn’t to the best of his ability (especially English) but I do need to leave him to it a fair bit whilst I work, I really hope he won’t be too far behind and we are both trying our best but I cannot spend 15 mins every hour away from my work to have a battle with him about whether he has done his best work (I always ask and do a quick check and if really poor will have that battle) but not sure how long we can keep it all going and still have a happy family home...

Have to add the school use showbie and he is able to mostly upload stuff himself, he also gets it marked and comments fed back which is helping keeping him do it

Parent here, and I have to give full kudos to DD's school and teachers.

1st Lockdown was a shambles. This one is so slick it's a miracle.

They're using Teams, and setting assignments. Kids watch the inbuilt videos and teaching sessions, follow links, listen to files and answer directly into the powerpoint or word document - which can also be downloaded and printed if needed. They then 'hand in' the assignment back to the teacher, who can view and comment and mark directly.

They can also message directly, and to each other to ask for help. School have been setting Maths, Reasoning, English, SpaG and Guided Reading everyday. We also get a weekly Music lesson (and it's technical theory - very well done), 2x science and history assignments per week, to be completed over more than one day in stages, plus weekly PHSE, and assembly and some other topic-y bits. No filler, no make work and the whole thing is designed to be independently completable - so no 'make a volcano' needing parental involvement. We also have Bug Club for assigned reading books as well.

It's very well done, and very low effort on my part. I'm having to step in to help and prompt, but I'm not having to do hours of uploading or admin. so far, DD is 100% of assignments and I see no reason it won't stay that way.

Year 1, pretty affluent area.

Engagement has already dropped to around 25٪