can't be 'polite' and good any longer....

[swallowedAfly]

ds goes to a village primary with all the subsequent over-reliance on parents wealth, education, time, etc. re: assuming sahms are the norm, money is plentiful for fanciful trips and activities, we all know how to sew up costumes at the drop of a hat etc.

that's fine. i chose to live here. however....

homework is way over the top in terms of quantity and right from day one of school. one part of homework (there is loads) is the 'learning log' which is pretended to be something children could do indepndently and consolidates learning. except in reality it is not, by a long shot.

i've put up with it and put up with and felt enslaven to doing it until today when i've had enough. this week for ds (6yo and one of the most able in his year) it says, "show me what you've learned about number bonds up to 20 and what patterns you can see". then there's a blank page.

i don't know why (because this is far from the worst that's come home) but today i've had enough and found myself writing on the page that i have no idea what the learning objective is, what outcomes they're hoping for or how the hell they see this as differentiated. i've also asked how they think a parent with numeracy or literacy problems would tackle this task and whether they would actually set this as a task in class to 6yos and expect a meaningful outcome.

there is no context, no structure, no literacy support, no prompts nothing. same as ever. sometimes the tasks don't even relate to anything they've been learning.

am i totally unreasonable or would you after a year or so be fed up too? i am (if it's not obvious) an ex teacher and i know what education is supposed to be about and this is not it. homework should be meaningful. how could a 6yo read that question and face a blank page and do something a teacher could look at and assess to see what they've learnt? they couldn't.

on top of this learning log (given on a friday and expected in by tuesday) daily reading and signing of reading book is expected plus other bits and bobs. he's 6! he's been getting this since 5 at a point where some kids couldn't even write let alone face a blank page and an open ended task and produce something yet they'd get in trouble if they didn't. this is just a test of parents surely? and an unfair one given it assumes knowledge and literacy that some parents won't have?

sorry for long random rant but help! i'm not playing this game anymore and i'm ready to speak up. it's a joke.

???
Teaching is the only place I know where the question 'Can I arrive at work safely' will even be considered. In any other industry I have worked for, the assumption is that you will leave earlier to be there on time and you will take whatever time to go back home (ie no allowance for people to leave 'early' because the weather is bad). And make whatever other changes you need to do to ensure you can go to work in the morning (eg park a few street away where the road is clear instead of parking in front of your house)

Is the child safe? should not even be in the equation, School, as any building, should be safe enough for children to stay in for the day ie there is adequate heating and electricity. I mean what sort of ground of building can be so poor that it would be unsafe to use with (a little) snow? Again I have never seen a factory etc.. to close because it suddenly becomes unsafe because of the snow. It is assumed that people will take necessary precautions (eg walk on the pathways that have clearer) and will then stay inside. And the building themselves will resist to a few inch of snow.

Whether it is safe for the child to come is up to the parents and should not be the decision of the school.

As for enough teachers.. well what does the school do when a teacher is off sick? Ask a TA to fill in, ring for a supply teacher? It might not be perfect conditions for teaching but teaching can and will happen if you want to make it happen.

I did say it is one aspect of what schools provide for children and their families (childcare)
This is obviously the case. Maybe if teachers had more respect for childcare and those that work in this area they wouldn't be so horrified at the idea ?
I'm a qualified teacher who has also worked in day nurseries and pre-schools, so very much in that dual role of early years education/ childcare.
Childcare is always early years education too.
Teaching always has elements of caring for the child too.

Sorry xposts.

The DfES published "Homework Guidelines for Primary & Secondary Schools" setting out how many hours homework a child should be expected to do in each year group. While not statutory most schools pay lip service to it and fear of Ofsted motivates heads to jump through all kinds of hoops

Caring and providing "childcare" are very different as Teacherwith2kids explained JugglingFromHereToThere

So I am not REQUIRED to open the school just because some parents would like childcare just so that they can struggle into work (which for them they might acceptably reach for 10 or 11 am), because I cannot deliver an appropriate education safely.

That is really annoying me.

As an employee I am expected to arrive on time at work. Not everyone can work flexi time. Far from. Actually in my area (industry) where shift work and production lines are the norms, people arriving 3 hours late can mean a production line that is stopped or some very expensive rework afterwards. Not something that will ever be allowed.

And whilst school is NOT childcare, saying that school is completely disconnected from the rest of the world and that whatever schools do doesn't have any effect or should even be taken into account is just stupid.
Companies are asked to ensure that they have some policies in place to ensure everything keeps ticking away in a case of snow ans unexpected school closure. Why on earth should school not also take into account the impact that their closure would have on the children and the parents?

Park a few streets away ... you must be a townie? A couple of our staff are so rural they phone and ask a friendly farmer to "snow plough" part of the route to the nearest road. Can't park roadside within miles of their homes as they are single tracks and besides, they would be snowed in wherever they parked.

Yes buildings are safe for children, but not if the water is cut off and we cannot flush toilets or wash hands, or if the heating has broken down.
When a teacher is off sick we phone and get a supply teacher or an HLTA covers. If it is half the staff that doesn't really work. Last time we had heavy snow all staff that could set off very early. I was in by 8.15am after a long journey, but was sweating when we calculated we had four staff who had arrived for a school of over 400 children. Luckily enough teachers, TAs and Dinner ladies made it in by opening time, but if we hadn't had enough could one member of staff kept 100 children safe all day?

The point is, Fresh (and i realise that I should have made it clearer):

I am not REQUIRED to open the school
IF no education can be provided
AND the safety of the children and staff will be compromised.

Obviously, if a reasonably safe staffing level and reasonably safe buildings can be provided (even if the education for that day is substandard) then yes, I can be reasonably required to open the school.

It is a little different in an adult workplace, where each person can be responsible for their own safety. In a school, where the adults are responsible for the safety of the children, especially when those children are very young, there does have to be a safe ratio for the school to open.

"The DfES published "Homework Guidelines for Primary & Secondary Schools"

Gove scrapped the homework guidance 18 months ago and delegated the decision to schools, who now have "freedom". OfSTED still have 'appropriate' homework in their recipes.

Do you live and work in a rural area where roads are closed in the winter due to weather conditions FreshCucumber?

An interesting aside the school where I work has only been closed once due to the weather (burst pipes) yet parents who live within walking distance choose not to send their children to school some even posting on facebook the school is closed when not the case.

mrz I did not know that teachers lost a day's pay for snow days. Makes it even more surprising that they don't manage to get in then?
On the day I was referring to I got to work in a town 10 miles away and I live in a very rural area. DS1 got to college in the next town.
The local comp shut. Several DC had a GCSE exam cancelled. The parents could have got them there for it.

In my last school, we once closed early because of flooding. I happened to be the last member of staff out, and at that point there was only 1 route out. I was the last 'normal' car through that route.

The CLOSEST teacher to the school lived 10 miles away,and although a couple of other staff (1 TA, 1 dinner lady) lived in the village, it would not have been safe (or fair on them in terms of responsibility) to leave them each in charge of 50+ children for an entire day. Had an accident happened, parents would have been very quick to complain....

"I mean what sort of ground of building can be so poor that it would be unsafe to use with (a little) snow?"

Lack of water is what usually makes us unsafe, tbh. Lack of heating as well - many school buildings are old (Victorian) and heating and water pipes are not in the kind of sheltered location where they might be in a private house especially because most heating systems are closed down mid-afternoon to save money and the buidlings then become very very cold overnight.

secretscwirrels given the choice between ignoring police warnings and risking life and limb or losing a day's pay I'm afraid there isn't a lot to think about

Equally, the flooding meant we lacked safe drinking water (we got that organised, but it took 24 hours) and had a horrible effect on the drains......

And that is also an issue that is high in our minds ... not only pupil (and staff) safety, but how parents respond to every accident. Slip on the ice we haven't got the staff to clear = sue the school for lack of site safety; hurt by another child when in a group of 50 + supervised by one member of staff as it is all the staff we have in = sue the school for inadequate levels of supervision.

The thing with the GCSE exam, secret, is that even if 19 out of 20 could have got in, the fact that the 20th couldn't meant that it would be better to cancel and rearrange.

We cannot both care for children in all the ways that MN often suggests - keep them safe at playtime, protect them from other children, keep an eye on their toileting etc etc - and then become completely oblivious of their safety on the way to school!

If every parent was willing to sign a waiver which said 'it is so important that I get to work, whatever the weather, that I absolve you of any responsibility for any accident or harm that comes to my child on the way to school, at school or on the way home from school today, and I want you to disregard anything that you know about risk assessment or risk management.' perhaps it would be different....

Actually I do live in the countryside yes.
Or rather we are surrounded by the countryside.

For primary school, most children (about 80%) walk to school as they are close enough. The other have a 5min car journey.
That is my own set up.

A few miles away, my SIL is right in the middle of the countryside where a lot of the children take the bus to go to school (about 50%). What would take a 10min journey by car takes the children 1h30 by bus as they have so many stops to do and and they take the very long way round so drop everyone.

I have seen the school shutting at 1.00pm and parents told to come now to pick the children because of the awful weather and teachers having to drive to X . My DH works in that town. There was no snow at all there .....
But I was expected to stop work and pick the dcs up even though I can't wo major issue at work.
We were told it was for the teachers safety not the children safety All the tecahers were in too...

My SIL school in the same period closed just one day (we had several days where the school was shut and weeks where we didn't know what was going to happen from one day to the next), the day when the school bus didn't manage to pick up the children.
We have no children coming by bus.....

So yes I think that some school take it very easy.

Especially when people who work with/for me are coming from the same area than said teachers and do manage to come to work on time....
Or when people who are in a real countryside and have much more problem to come in do manage to do so. (I am talking about the pennines, the dales and the north yorkshire moors here)

The children are staying in the classroom anyway. How are they going to get hurt more tha when it rains (and they are also stuck indoors)?

Btw I am not talking about burst pipes here. That would be a cause of concern for me (at school or at work actually). Nor am I talking about unheated building (again there are some rules on what is considered acceptable).
I am talking about a school that closes because 'It's too dangerous to get to school for the teachers'.

teacher, as far as I am concerned, it is my responsibility to decide if it's too dangerous to take my child to school or not. As we talk about primary school these are all children who will be taken to school by their parents or children who live very close by. Same for going back home. I can't see how it would be the school's responsibility.

As for in the school, see previous posts. Unless very specific cases, it should be the same for the children for a 'rain day' then for a 'snow day'. Well at least it was at our school as the dcs were not not allowed on the playground for weeks at the time

Snwing during the school day is every head's nightmare (luckily, it is normally overnight, and once it is established whether the school has heating and water the decision is then relatively easy).

Wait until the end of the school day, and take the risk of 6 inches of snow falling during the afternoon and some children being stuck there for hours because parents can't collect the children safely?

Or shut the school early and risk parents being angry because they CAN still get to the school?

It's genuinely difficult. On the occasion of the flood, I was last out because the parents of a child in my class ' couldn't be bothered' to come and pick him up 'because it was earlier than normal and we were watching telly'. They lived about 5 doors from the school - but had they been even 5 minutes later I would have not been able to get home, and would have had to ask a parent or TA or dinner lady to put me up overnight.

Why are the children staying in the classroom? genuine question

Nice idea teacher, but, as teachers we could never live with ourselves if a child was hurt by something we know we could have prevented if our training and instincts were allowed to be followed. That is child care.

On a same note FreshCucumber I doubt some parents would feel a shred of remorse at insisting a teacher comes in (despite their own belief that it is not safe for them to travel) if the member of staff has a serious or fatal car accident on the way. That is why staff have the right to follow police alerts telling us not to travel. But some parents obviously feel they know better about road safety than the traffic police.