No school for us til 9th April at the earliest. Royally fucked off now.

[WeAreFromThePlanetDuplo]

Announcement just made for NI that most kids won't be going back to school until after the Easter holidays, and there's no guarantee of that. So fed up.

@angrysquirrel73

Saoirse7 I'm not being obtuse - some of the 1.5hrs online learning time is the child also doing they are not listening to the teaching all the time. You were quite clear that it is the same in the classroom which tbh was why I was quite shocked! Also there isnt really much feedback as no work is submitted for marking and there are no times tables / spelling tests so I do not know how the teacher knows how much has been absorbed (also as they are not in the same room so are limited on interaction). Outside of the 1.5hrs they are not doing any additional work in the home learning. 1.5hrs is the total.

You said the teacher was doing live lessons for 1.5hrs. I said in a classroom situation we teach no more than 1.5 hrs in the entire day.

FWIW I did one live Zoom lesson and it was the most unproductive hour of my life. I now make teaching video and give feedback/further teaching on a 1:1 basis.

This thread has really highlighted just how little some people understand about a days teaching.

You also said it was your friends children, you seem to know an awful lot about the content of their daily lessons considering you aren't there

(The balance between live, video and offline is designed for families with multiple children sharing the same device, and our timetable for live online 'teaching' is staggered accordingly.)

It's grim, my 12 year old hasn't seen any of his friends since Dec 19th when they broke up for Xmas, apart from online lessons. The thought of him not being able to meet up with friends until after Easter makes me despair. No rugby or swimming for the foreseeable either. he doesn't even want to go for another boring pointless walk with me anymore and who can blame him. If we lived a bit nearer to his friends and parents were willing I'd send him to the park to kick a ball about with them.

@Globe22

It's grim, my 12 year old hasn't seen any of his friends since Dec 19th when they broke up for Xmas, apart from online lessons. The thought of him not being able to meet up with friends until after Easter makes me despair. No rugby or swimming for the foreseeable either. he doesn't even want to go for another boring pointless walk with me anymore and who can blame him. If we lived a bit nearer to his friends and parents were willing I'd send him to the park to kick a ball about with them.

Thats really tough Globe22. Can you not take him to the park and let him walk/play football with his friends whilst you have a walk separately? 2 12 year olds are allowed to exercise together? Appreciate i dont know your circumstances though. I hope your DS is ok. The impact of all of this on our kids makes my heart hurt.

Schools can’t open without adults to help them, office, lunch, caretaker etc before you even get on to the teaching staff. Does the gov care about vaccinating teachers so schools can reopen? No? Yes home schooling is tough but so is teaching keyworker kids (the rules changed so much so now everyone is a keyworker) and teaching the home school is basically two jobs. Teachers are handing notices in and leaving.

@welshmercury

Schools can’t open without adults to help them, office, lunch, caretaker etc before you even get on to the teaching staff. Does the gov care about vaccinating teachers so schools can reopen? No? Yes home schooling is tough but so is teaching keyworker kids (the rules changed so much so now everyone is a keyworker) and teaching the home school is basically two jobs. Teachers are handing notices in and leaving.

I'm one of them.

The pay is crap for all the shite you have to deal with. Then you come on here to read all the distain from people who have never done a days teaching in their lives.

It's completely right that five lessons a day at school doesn't equate to five hours of the teacher talking.

To be honest, many classes are getting more input and more independent practice remotely than last term, if we just add up time.

In September, entrances were staggered, so ten minutes of lessons were lost for some, twenty for others. Work had to be uploaded electronically, so lessons were finished early.

Having thousands of children sanitise their hands on the as back in from break took away learning time. It was raining outside and there was nowhere to sit and eat, so lessons were cut short for 15 minutes of eating at a desk in the classroom, so twenty minutes of fresh air was still allowed at lunchtime. Same at the end of the day with exits from the building.

Incidentally, those talking about mental health issues and eating disorders increasing - we saw this in children not wanting to eat next to the person they shared a desk with (alphabetical order) or use the toilets.

Ordinarily, face to face teaching is better than online. But at the moment five hours of logging in, listening, talking, thinking, trying and improving is safer and working at least as well as the mess of repeated isolations last year. It's a pain collecting a child who's a close contact and keeping them at home for 10 days, but you should see the chaos when that child is served with a letter and removed from the room by a senior member of staff. Children nearby are instantly clamouring to be let out too, because they feel at risk. And lessons do not just continue smoothly.

Thank you, I'll try and see if we can contact one or 2 of them. We have tried looking out for them on our walks but to no avail. He doesn't have a mobile phone yet, but will be getting one when the shops open up, should have got him one at Xmas but he hasn't had a need for one - until now!

@Globe22

It's grim, my 12 year old hasn't seen any of his friends since Dec 19th when they broke up for Xmas, apart from online lessons. The thought of him not being able to meet up with friends until after Easter makes me despair. No rugby or swimming for the foreseeable either. he doesn't even want to go for another boring pointless walk with me anymore and who can blame him. If we lived a bit nearer to his friends and parents were willing I'd send him to the park to kick a ball about with them.

My children don't want to walk anymore either. You're not alone. This article just summed it up for me. www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40228529.html?fbclid=IwAR26m6iyFxBc-_4_MSnhBMTmvzAgN-PA0UZRFqHgncGqC-b91CF0xSOm4GU

@Globe22

It's grim, my 12 year old hasn't seen any of his friends since Dec 19th when they broke up for Xmas, apart from online lessons. The thought of him not being able to meet up with friends until after Easter makes me despair. No rugby or swimming for the foreseeable either. he doesn't even want to go for another boring pointless walk with me anymore and who can blame him. If we lived a bit nearer to his friends and parents were willing I'd send him to the park to kick a ball about with them.

Exactly the same here. Hasn't seen mates for months, mates parents won't allow their children out with a friend for a walk/bike ride etc, so he's stuck with us. Utterly crap.

Saoirse7 its not disdain its discussion. I have respect teachers whether they have children or not. Equally I don't see that parents need to have teaching experience to be able to comment on education?
I don't think many people think online teaching is as good as class room teaching - we all agree on that. We all agree children should return to school as soon as possible.
Vaccinating teachers could be a good solution to reducing transmission - I don't think anyone has disagreed with that.

@angrysquirrel73

Saoirse7 its not disdain its discussion. I have respect teachers whether they have children or not. Equally I don't see that parents need to have teaching experience to be able to comment on education? I don't think many people think online teaching is as good as class room teaching - we all agree on that. We all agree children should return to school as soon as possible. Vaccinating teachers could be a good solution to reducing transmission - I don't think anyone has disagreed with that.

I don't see any other profession where people have such an opinion on how it should be done. Just because people went to school they think they are experts. Medical staff do not get any flack (no should they) for NHS disasters, waiting lists etc. However, teachers get all the shit for the problems in schools.

Discussion is fine but people are discussing and making blanket assertions about things they know nothing about. All anyone sees is their own child.

Teaching is the easiest part of being a teacher, that's the only part that parents see and that's the tip of the iceberg.

You can comment on it, but you can't actually judge what's effective across the board.

Whatever your kids' schools decide about the delivery of the curriculum will be for a good reason. And in teachers' experiences, it's never about what's easiest for them, but thr prevailing attitude on here is that we should always be doing more, differently, to suit individual parents.

Classroom teaching can be brilliant, or absolutely awful. And I can hand on heart say that traipsing around the whole school site crossing bubbles for shortened lessons where there were no subject specific resources, and the computers took ages to log on, with children who were scared and fed up - unable to mix with chosen friends at school, or access specialist rooms, or talk face to face quietly with with teacher, but perfectly fine to sit next to and be exposed to the same random child on the seating plan for hours at a time - was not the best quality teaching I've ever been able to do.

Learning how to include children remotely, have one to one dialogue with them, in real time, and for them to be free from the burden of spreading disease across the whole room or beyond (and the knock on effects of that outside school) has been better for their education and wellbeing than last term.

Vaccinating teachers is one idea, but whilst children are still transmitting it, putting lots of them close together in a building isn't a good idea.

@Saoirse7 i dont think anyone has been bashing teachers on here have they? If anything, I'd say its the reverse, the vast majority of posters feel massively unqualified to do what teachers do; hence the desperation to get our kids back to school.

@siestalady 😂😂

@Woolff

You can comment on it, but you can't actually judge what's effective across the board.

Whatever your kids' schools decide about the delivery of the curriculum will be for a good reason. And in teachers' experiences, it's never about what's easiest for them, but thr prevailing attitude on here is that we should always be doing more, differently, to suit individual parents.

Classroom teaching can be brilliant, or absolutely awful. And I can hand on heart say that traipsing around the whole school site crossing bubbles for shortened lessons where there were no subject specific resources, and the computers took ages to log on, with children who were scared and fed up - unable to mix with chosen friends at school, or access specialist rooms, or talk face to face quietly with with teacher, but perfectly fine to sit next to and be exposed to the same random child on the seating plan for hours at a time - was not the best quality teaching I've ever been able to do.

Learning how to include children remotely, have one to one dialogue with them, in real time, and for them to be free from the burden of spreading disease across the whole room or beyond (and the knock on effects of that outside school) has been better for their education and wellbeing than last term.

Vaccinating teachers is one idea, but whilst children are still transmitting it, putting lots of them close together in a building isn't a good idea.

Totally agree

[quote siestalady]@Saoirse7 i dont think anyone has been bashing teachers on here have they? If anything, I'd say its the reverse, the vast majority of posters feel massively unqualified to do what teachers do; hence the desperation to get our kids back to school.[/quote]
You must be new.

There has been a huge number of teacher bashing threads on here.

[quote siestalady]@Saoirse7 i dont think anyone has been bashing teachers on here have they? If anything, I'd say its the reverse, the vast majority of posters feel massively unqualified to do what teachers do; hence the desperation to get our kids back to school.[/quote]
Teachers are still currently doing it, and parents wanting kids back physically in school implies that teachers aren't still teaching while the kids are at home.

They're still getting what the school must provide and people are judging this not to be enough.

I completely get that children would rather see their friends. But that's not the same as saying that education will be instantly better if we let all children back to school.

In most cases, children are equally 'locked up' in one room all day, sitting with someone they haven't chosen, and breaks are cut short, staggered and segregated, so they can't socialise like they used to and their lessons are still being compromised based on normal standards.

@catsarecute

I would be very happy if they said this in England. It's still too soon yet. Levels are the same rate they were at at the end of September, we need to get them lower.

Agree with this completely. We have all been through too much this time to mess things up at this stage. Risks are still way too high. I'd rather go through a bit more pain and the sensible approach to be applied properly

Woolff this is true when schools reopened they shouldn't be weird, desolate wastelands with only 2 children per room. It's got to be sufficiently 'normal'.

Thanks I'm not new actually but you can think what you like. I was referring to this specific thread, I dont think there has been any teacher bashing on here.

I dont think online learning is enough, especially not for the youngest kids. That isnt teacher bashing at all, I know that teachers have been working really hard throughout lockdown and remote learning has served its purpose whilst numbers were high but personally I think its time to get schools back.

The work my 6 year old has had is not the same as if he were in school - I just dont have time to reiterate and reinforce what he is shown in - eg a white rose maths video like he would with a partner or the teacher in school - so whilst he may be covering the same things he would if he was physcially in school; i cant imagine the concepts are properly 'sticking' like they would if he was in school.

@Globe22 It's grim, my 12 year old hasn't seen any of his friends since Dec 19th when they broke up for Xmas, apart from online lessons.

Same here except we don't even have online lessons.

The only place my kids get to see their friends is online Cubs and Scouts. Its ridiculous that volunteer Scout leaders are able to provide online interactive learning but school cant.

@doubleshotespresso - but what level of risk would you be happy with? 1000 cases a day? 100? 10?

siestalady I agree. I think people are pissed off with the politicians and unions but individual teachers are not calling the shots so I dont see that there has been any bashing.

@Themanofmydreams

They said 8th March earliest return in England so they need to stick to it!

At the earliest

When they said 'at the earliest' that means it could be delayed further, it could be only some year groups or it could be all at once.

That means they may not all return in March 8.

I do think it's very important parents hear themselves up for the news that some children may not return on March 8. There may be some disappointed parents if you don't prepare yourself for what might happen.

I also think it's important that parents aren't telling their children they'll be back in March 8 too - just avoid any potential disappointment and upset, just in case.

Personally I think in England at the very least key stage 1 and reception will return and some exam classes. Maybe all primary.

I don't the government will take into account a lot of CV people, including teachers and parents won't have been vaccinated by then, let alone had 3 weeks after. I don't believe the government will put measures in place to reduce the risk either, it'll be back as before.

Tbh based on what's gone before chances are they will all go back with no measures in place, but there's no guarantee.