Anyone else? Secondary school and no work set

[pollysproggle]

My sons school closed on Tuesday last week. School sent out parent mail on school closing etc and also details for logging in to a parent app with details for my child.

I didn't ask him to do any work last week. I thought I'd let the dust settle and start a routine this week so I logged into this site with the details provided yesterday expecting there to be something (work or info/links) but there isn't anything. It's just his usual school time table and attendance record. Nothing useful.
I have more emails about key workers etc and one about links to gcse pods and study for that level but nothing for him. DS is 13 and year 8.
I did call the school today but didn't get an answer, I know they're busy obviously and low on staff but does this sound unusual to not have anything?

Chatted to a neighbour today (from afar) with a primary and secondary age child in different schools to my son and she said they have online scheduled work every day!

He had a few things to do on Hegarty maths yesterday but nothing new today.

I can source some work online but after a week should I have more from the school?

Could your son not be being honest with you? A lot of secondary schools are setting it on SMHW or their equivalent and many times parents don’t have access? I very highly doubt that there hasn’t been work set - it may not be amazing quality work in the first week as they get to grips with how to approach everything but I’m sure there is plenty of work to be done.

What is SMHW?
I really don't think he's not telling me about it.
If that's a platform to do homework I know he doesn't use anything like that. His school do not give out a lot of homework at all to the point parents have complained it's too little. There's normally maths online and that's it. At the last parents evening I enquired about homework with every subject teacher (because I thought DS was perhaps being sneaky about it) and their response was that they don't set it or expect the children to revise from their own notes so if there was an online way which he wasn't completing I'd expect they'd say so?

It’s an online platform - smhw stands for show my homework. It’s just where teachers upload homework or revision ideas and they can assign it to specific classes. Each subject teacher can then publish something for specifically their class.

Could your son text a few classmates and ask if he’s missing something? Is there another parent you know (even if not the same class or year) to ask where you can find it?

You don’t actually do the homework on smhw, the teacher just writes what the homework is e.g. French - learn spellings of the animal vocab covered in class

My dd is also in year eight and she has five lessons a day set, all through Show my Homework. We have a parents account so we can look and see what has been set

I can understand that schools might not see the value in a lot of homework in ordinary times but this is a different situation and they need a focus. My older dd is in year 11 a s is adrift as she has no focus.

@RitaConnors Yes, parents do have login details. Many claim to not be able to access it though when asked if they could remind/encourage their dc to complete their homework.

Is your dd planning to stay at the school for A-levels? If so, many departments will start or have started giving work to the Y11’s taking their subject. It’s a mixture of bits covered in Y10/11 and some revision or key things that definitely need to be mastered before starting Y12. Maybe you could ask your dd to contact the teachers of those subjects and see if they could provide something.

No she's going to sixth form college. We are going to look at the courses and find something for her to do around the subjects she's chosen but she's gone from revising all the time to nothing.

Thanks all, I'll do some further investigation tomorrow and try the school again.
I've just gone through all the emails and texts again, only info for anything online is for parent app which they gave out the day after the school closed and gcse pod.

My yr 9 only had one thing set today for next week - some geography. I've bought him some workbooks to do instead form now on. Maths, science and English

My dc - one primary, one secondary - dif schools, both state.
They both have a full timetable of work and live teacher feedback/ support online if needed. I am very impressed but would not be in your boat. Masses of resources online if you need them though. Lots circulating on Facebook etc. Good luck - maybe it will be sorted by after Easter.

What about google classroom? Could they be using that?
What is the actual policy in homework btw? J know this isjt homework what youre asking for atm, but for when we return to school it is worth finding the policy so you have something to argue with.

Thank you for responses- I messaged a few mums last night and they are the same so I haven't missed anything it's just all there is so far!
Apparently on gcse pod I can access videos etc for year 8 but the site won't let me set anything up to login/ won't recognise anything I put in so there must be a glitch somewhere. I'll keep trying.

Anyway, I was up at 5am, pulled up the curriculum, downloaded lots of study notes and cross referenced them with what revision notes he has, set up a site called Quizlets and added lots of areas and subjects he can work on online.
Started this morning and was great. All subjects written on paper in a jar and he has to pick two a day and work for an hour on each to start with.
Hopefully this will give him some structure until the school work out something better.

He picked maths which we've done and P.E which means he's in the garden for an hour + kicking a ball about and going on the trampoline which means I can have a well deserved cuppa and catch up on Mumsnet!

For year 11s, I work in a sixth form college and we know a lot of our feeder secondaries aren’t setting work now for year 11 so we’re uploading transition work for students hoping to do certain subjects with us in September. Obviously we won’t mark them but they’re designed to be accessible to all and easy to do with limited equipment. Eg in media I’ve set things like make a media diary for members of your family, look at advert breaks to see if you can work out who the target audience is, storyboard a music video etc. Things they can easily spin out into big projects if it takes their fancy. They’re not limited to potential students of our college so check and see if any sixth form has things like these on their website. If nothing else it’s something educational to get on with during this time. The Media tasks would probably interest any student to be honest!

Google MOOCS and choose some in hid Gcse subjects or the subjects he hopes to do for A level or anything else that takes his interest.

Thanks @HugoSpritz
I received an email yesterday from the school and daily work will now be posted plus a project for a specific subject due at the end of next month.
They're also rolling out live lessons after Easter so seems the school are now figuring out the logistics of it all which is good.

Now the challenge is to get him motivated to do the work...

Hi all
Hope you're safe and well.
I'm looking to but GCSEPod for Y10 son, as it will verbally deliver content, old and new for 9/10 of his subjects. Does anyone know if it's any good.