Work sheets and oak academy ?

[SeldomFollowedIt]

Bit late in the day now but I just wanted to get some opinions. My children’s primary school have provided work sheets and emails directing us to oak academy lessons. No zoom lessons and their work sheets do not get marked. Zero feedback.

This is poor isn’t it?

To top it off we have been informed some classes might not go back at all next week as some staff members are awaiting test results.

Am I being unreasonable to feel so deflated with the school?

couple of introductory minutes of video

That's not what Oak Academy is for a start.

I wonder if you'd be such a fan of live lessons if your kid was one of the ones who couldn't attend them.

I must admit I am more tempted to listen to actual teachers and their opinions as to the value of live lessons . It was repeatedly pointed out not to value the medium rather than the education.

Of course home learning will look very different to high quality classroom education. But just trying to replicate it on a screen isn't really the answer in many (most?) cases.

I wish people would value educators experience and expertise to listen to them!

I just wish teachers valued themselves enough to accept that a 2 minute video is a dire substitute for an actual lesson

I don't think anyone on this thread is claiming that a 2 minute introductory video is a substitute for a live lesson. But a 2 minute intro video is not a substitute for a pre-recorded lesson either.

And none of those things are a substitute for being in a classroom. All of those things are better than not doing anything at all because 'it's boring'.

I think you need to look at the structure of a school and rates of attendance of key worker and vulnerable children to know how much time has been available to develop their own home learning resources. My DDs' primary is 2 form entry and they only needed one class open in each year for their key worker and vulnerable children. So that meant they had one member of staff each day free to develop home learning resources like videos and mark homelearning work. I'm sure many schools haven't been in that position, so have had to look to other resources.

We have had 3 video lessons a day. Not live, which suited us much better as we are both trying to work full time, so are not always available to sort out out 6 year old's Zoom issues and keep her on task, not rolling about on the floor. Sometimes home learning has started at 8pm because of our work.

As well as the video lessons on the core of reading, writing and maths there have been choices of activities on other subjects. We haven't touched those, so I'm glad they haven't had as much effort used to develop them.

For every parent whinging about not having enough home learning to fill a day, there's a parent like me trying to work out what the bare minimum is because I just can't fit in more due to work.

They've had a daily Zoom call with some educational content. But a lot of it seems to be listening to other kids talk crap about wobbly teeth. So I'm not really sure more would have been better.

Oak Academy lessons aren’t two min intros. They’re full lessons.

My Y3 got a heck of a lot out of them and as a professional editor with a masters in English language, I was very impressed with the English lessons. The music ones are good too. Maths are good but can get monotonous, so on days when I had time, I took over and talked over the lesson. Science and history were good too. The lessons were very in depth. I find the descriptions of them as a two minute intro odd.

I preferred them to live lessons because I could set the time table around my work so I could assist her.

Our school had 40% attendance in lockdown so the work set and feedback given was much appreciated.

@noblegiraffe

You decided to ditch the school work. You decided not to ask the school for anything different.

You’ve got cold feet on that decision now they’re going back to school and are trying to make out it’s the school’s fault.

It was your responsibility and you didn’t make them do it. Just own it fgs.

Pretty much sums it up.

People need to learn to speak up and take control of their lives instead of retrospectively blaming others on the internet. Give people the chance to help sooner

If only a qualified teacher could have foreseen that nine weeks of being dumped in outschool classes might fall short of something resembling and engaging educational situation for a primary school child, eh? What a mystery.

@FourTeaFallOut do you mean oak academy?
Outschool has been excellent

Yes, Oakschool Outschool is brilliant, we used it quite a lot in the first lockdown when there was radio silence from the school.

Oak Academy

I genuinely don’t see the angst regarding Oak National Academy. They have been a god send to me, to be able to catch up with home learning in the late afternoons and weekends, due to working full time from home.

In addition, I also have Dyscalculia and I am not sure why this specifically would have prevented my child from accessing the maths work. They just follow the lessons surely? Answers in the video. Able to pause and look things up. Definitely better than nothing for 8 weeks.

The criticism of ‘being boring’ or ‘too perky’ (they can’t win obviously!) is very telling regarding some parents’ excuses of why they stopped doing any work. ‘Boring’ and ‘Boredom’ are not terrible things and in fact, there is plenty of research done that shows boredom can lead to creativity.

Couldn't agree with you more about Oak Academy and yes OP, I agree the provision you have had is poor. I complained to the school about the poor provision my child was getting and it did result in minor improvement.

On their own, an oak academy class wouldn't be so bad. But weeks and weeks on end with no feedback from anyone and the teacher who set this work has to wait for a complaint that this might fall below a reasonable expectation for a child's education?

[quote BunsyGirl]@Abraxan Yes, so does my DC’s school. They have basically divided the teachers into two groups and moved teachers to other year groups where necessary.[/quote]
We simply don't have the staffing and the room to do that.

@SeldomFollowedIt

I’ve done zero home learning for my kids because oak Academy is ridiculously boring and they’re not motivated enough because the work isn’t getting marked. I’ve made sure they have read books extensively throughout this lockdown, but that’s it.

Tons of outdoor exercise/park trips and the kids are fine, so I haven’t mentioned anything. I guess it’s because they still might not be back on Monday. I presume this is because there will not be enough staff.

Just feel like it’s been so long since they learnt anything properly 😢.

Why couldn't you have marked their work and provided feedback?

I have marked all of my child's work and then the teacher has commented with praise or feedback such as "next time..." . I can hardly expect her to mark work that's on paper even with photos of the work.

I think that you've disadvantaged your child and contributed towards their negativity. Parental accountability is as important as teacher accountability. Ultimately, parents who have opted out of ensuring their children have continued to receive an education have chosen to disadvantage their children....

@FourTeaFallOut

On their own, an oak academy class wouldn't be so bad. But weeks and weeks on end with no feedback from anyone and the teacher who set this work has to wait for a complaint that this might fall below a reasonable expectation for a child's education?

If the teacher receives no work, how can they give feedback?

They could probably say, "I see you have done no work, what's the problem? Are you having any difficulty with the work set? Is there anything I can do to help because I realise what I have offered is the very minimum I can get away with?"

@FourTeaFallOut

They could probably say, "I see you have done no work, what's the problem? Are you having any difficulty with the work set? Is there anything I can do to help because I realise what I have offered is the very minimum I can get away with?"

Have you seen the many many threads on Mumsnet of parents complaining when teachers have done this? Probably been ‘bitten’ by parents telling them to leave them alone.

Complaining parents on Mumsnet cannot be the reason why teachers have reneged on their role in caring for their students education, surely?

What would become of p.e. day if MN complainers were the tipping point for decisions in education?

@FourTeaFallOut

Complaining parents on Mumsnet cannot be the reason why teachers have reneged on their role in caring for their students education, surely?

My point being their school may well have had parents complaining to them to leave them alone (not that the school bases their policy on Mumsnet-wouldn’t that be a horror! )

So, their response was to do nothing? The op has a child who has done nothing and the school's response was to do nothing and that ok because someone else's parent said mean words at some point?

I don't know how anyone who cares about the education of children could defend any of this. It is shameful.

Good to see that lack of parental support is now also the fault of teachers.

There’s literally nothing we can’t be blamed for.

Some parents have been able to cope well enough. I was lucky enough that the schools my children go to didn't do the very least they could get away with and I've been able to reduce my hours so that I can support them to engage with the work set.

That's a pretty fortunate position. But some parents and some children are going to struggle more than others and what teachers could do to help is by not doing the very least they could get away with and checking in on those children who are not managing with that piss poor effort. Right? Or is that too much to ask?