Schools - why are they doing this?

[Scrooge89]

Why are the media preparing us for school closures? They simply can’t do this to us…

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-59673271

Not to my children. My youngest struggled so much at home and was one of the 25% who couldn’t go to school (although I saw how much some people fudged the key worker card I may have to do it).

I'm another one who wouldn't want live lessons. I had to do live lessons and shoved my kids upstairs to be quiet while I did them. We then followed their recorded lessons after I had finished. If both schools had done live lessons they wouldn't have attended any.

The secondary teachers might be keyworkers but their kids wouldn't get a school place. No need for a non-SEN non-vulnerable 15 year old to be in school just because their parent was out of the house.

As a teacher you were a key worker and had a place for your children at school

Secondary, so no. And of course I sent in my CEV child

As a primary teacher I only had a space for when I was actually in school with key workers children. On the days I worked from home (planning and teaching live lessons) I had my children with me.

Just to throw into the mix that many teachers will be very wary of sending out recorded lessons now, since they were used to upload videos of teachers onto Tiktok by some pupils. The unions are onto it, but it puts teachers in a vulnerable position.

@Jhjhjh3

All the children in my kids year who have been off “with covid” have actually been off with a positive test. Not one has been sick. Worst symptom appears to be a headache.

Lucky them. Not the case in my school.

Lucky them. Not the case in my school.

Or mine, and I work in a primary school. Unfortunately some of our pupils have been really unwell.

@Whinge

Lucky them. Not the case in my school.

Or mine, and I work in a primary school. Unfortunately some of our pupils have been really unwell.

Ours too. And some very poorly staff with family members.

@Jhjhjh3

All the children in my kids year who have been off “with covid” have actually been off with a positive test. Not one has been sick. Worst symptom appears to be a headache.

I teach infants and some of ours have been properly poorly, like a very heavy cold or flu virus. So definitely justified in being off during that time.

@Jhjhjh3

All the children in my kids year who have been off “with covid” have actually been off with a positive test. Not one has been sick. Worst symptom appears to be a headache.

Well, I’m super happy for them. But does it still need saying, nearly 2 years in, that this isn’t the case for all kids, even previously healthy kids with no underlying conditions?

Long covid, PIMS/MISC and post covid complications (organ damage, neurological problems) can affect any children, not just those with underlying conditions. Thankfully it doesn’t affect a large number, but is that much of a consolation when you don’t know who it’s going to affect?

Not to mention that long covid/complications can also follow even after mild symptoms, so that’s no guarantee of “safety”.

Not to mention how ridiculous that kind of post is. I don’t personally know any kids with leukemia, does that mean that no kids have it? I don’t personally know any kids who’ve been hospitalised with chicken pox, does that mean it’s never happened? Etc.

@noblegiraffe

As a teacher you were a key worker and had a place for your children at school

Not for secondary. Why do you think primaries were packed and secondaries weren't?

And to add to that, I taught live form lockdown day 1 so has to be online from 8.50. I was offered a KW place but couldn’t accept it as there was no wraparound. I couldn’t get m children to school or pick them up and teach.

*from

During the last lockdown the school I’m a governor at only took key workers children if both the parents were both key workers and both working outside the home. The key workers who could, however difficult, work from home did not get a school space for their children. Decision made by the head and supported by the governors.

We, and I think our parents (including me), were lucky in that teachers could make choices on how to deliver lessons. At least every other lesson had to be either live or a recorded by the teacher lesson. A maximum of every other lesson could be 'bridging' lessons where it was instructions and resources and independent work but the teacher had to be available for live support. It meant that each day there would be a mixture meaning they got some live lessons, some recorded and some bridging overall each day which I think allowed for some flexibility and planning and sharing of devices in households with multiple children.

From parent feedback this seemed to work well and mean there was a bit of something for everyone and kids never 'had' to sit for 5 or 6 hours straight at a screen or be tied to school hours but similarly it could be done that way if they preferred.

It also meant we could share the workload as a department with eg. me doing all of the lessons for year 7, another colleague doing all year 8 provision etc and therefore be able to create resources and lessons that worked well for remote learning rather than just using the same in person resources and lessons but over a teams or google meet without time to really adapt and tailor it for the different circumstances.

The obsession with live lessons got on my nerves to be honest. The teachers at my school who chose to do all live lessons were not as some on mn would suggest the most diligent but those who had decided it was the easiest way to do it and didn't require them to make any resources or put in any additional planning or do anything other than talk into their laptop, not review the work and call it job done. Student turn out and engagement with those lessons was not great a lot of the time but some parents on here would have thought it was great no doubt for their own reasons.

For those who were forced to do all live lessons I have real sympathy - especially those with kids at home and a partner also needing to work and not enough space in their house and having to eg. spend 6 hours perched on a kitchen chair bent over a laptop on the corner of the kitchen table. It definitely felt like more privileged voices - being those with big houses, lots of space, lots of devices, wonderful internet etc were given more attention than your average and therefore more prevalent households.

Anyway very much digressing.

I actually use lockdown as a sort of case study with my students a lot particularly when talking about the difference between sources and interpretations. I have them imagine that they each wrote about their experience about lockdown 1 and the fact that all of them would be true, contemporary sources but would give a very small piece of the picture.

Whereas a historian looking at all of those sources in the future writing an interpretation would have a much bigger picture and be able to see the variables of location, what kind of housing, socio economic factors, access to technology, parental employment stability, quality of relationships, whether they had a dog to walk etc and how these impacted on peoples experiences.

These are the kind of things schools had to think about without the benefit of hindsight and a load of sources to read. There was a wide range of needs and considerations to take into account. I was mindful that some of my students (many in fact) would be tuning in on a phone with no access to a keyboard or a printer and remind them each time it was fine to work on paper and take a photo and email it to me. Live lessons with a big screen and keyboard are a bit different to live lessons and a touchscreen keyboard that takes up half the screen and is fiddly to type onto.

I'm also shocked when I hear about schools who insisted on kids turning their cameras on - that's so intrusive if you're perched on the top bunk in your scruffy bedroom you share with your sibling and a world apart from being on a desk top in the study portion of your large bedroom.

I think the opposite. Why is no one taking the theat of omicron seriously until its too late? Again!

@TheHoneyBadger I tried explaining this to my Head Teacher about live lessons when she was asking us to do about 56 a week or whatever it was. I’m a P1 teacher so it wasn’t reasonable to expect a child of 4/5 years old to be sitting on a laptop all day every day 🤦🏼‍♀️ I wanted to pre-record lessons or provide games they could play etc. I was also newly pregnant and regularly boaking/having to run to the toilet to be sick so really didn’t want that happening with 25 kids (and their entire family behind them) while I was on a live lesson 🙈

I’m off on mat leave just now but my friend’s class has just gone over the ‘magic’ 20% positivity rate so she had to go for a PCR. Hers came back positive, despite having no symptoms so that’s her christmas ruined 😔 Schools are literally begging anyone to go in and cover a class at this point. There was talk of ending teacher’s isolations early in my authority to get more staff. So the fact they’d infect all the other teacher’s and cancel their Christmas doesn’t matter as long as there’s a body in front of a class 🙄

@Sherrytriflestrull
It's also my experience that y2/y3 have been most affected, and also maybe the exam year, although obviously in different ways.
My year 3's can't really write - most home learning was computer based. Maybe another reason that live lessons aren't all that.
Also things like following instructions and independence are much worse than 'normal.'

@twinkletoesimnot
I'm sorry to hear about your Y3's but glad it seems that my experience is not unique. We are also finding the children lack confidence, independence and listening skills as they have either done no remote learning or have been led through activities by an adult. Suddenly in a large class with one adult and they are lost :-(

I honestly believe an extra adult in all year 2 and 3 classes would make a massive difference.

@CousinGreg

Can people please, for the love of god stop saying ON THEIR KNEES!!!! The NHS IS ON THEIR KNEES SCHOOLS ARE ON THEIR KNEES

Change the bloody recors!

I have just come back from dropping off a bag of clothes for my dad, who is ill in hospital on a covid ward, he's had both jabs and booster and never goes anywhere or meets anyone.......... the hospital building is virtually empty, hardly any nursing staff left working there, they have 5 container lorries parked in the carpark outside the front entrance, refridgerated and wired to the building........the only two staff i did see looked absolutely shattered and run off their feet on the ward, patients were assisting other patients, so yeah, definately on their knees and worse , this is a very large hospital btw

I hope your dad is better soon @MibsXX
That sounds awful :-(

@Sherrytriflestrull

I hope your dad is better soon *@MibsXX* That sounds awful :-(

Thank you, I am fearing the worst, we lost my mum just 6 weeks ago and that already sucked the will to live out of him.........

Oh my goodness. I'm sorry to hear that too. Best wishes to you and your family .

@MibsXX hope your dad gets better really soon

Sounds absolutely awful in the hospital. How scary.
What were the container lorries for? (Sorry if that's a stupid Q)