State primary schools - what work are they providing for children at home

[Pitaramus]

Our kids are in year 3 and year 1 of our local state primary. They were each sent home with a print out of the twinkl school closure pack and a couple of other worksheets. We’ve had no communication from the head about what to expect going forward and a few messages from the individual teachers linking to useful websites for home education.

Our school is completely shut and the key worker children are going to a different local school. I think the teachers from all the local schools must be working some kind of rota system to staff the key worker school, so on an individual level none of them will be doing much.

Their teachers seem enthusiastic and hardworking. I’m surprised that we have not had anything from them, even a note to say that they plan to do nothing or that they plan to do something and they’ll let us know. I’m interested to hear what others’s experiences are before I email the headteacher and ask what I should expect. I just want to get on and plan something for them if the school aren’t going to do anything!

I know lots of the fee paying schools have been running online classrooms and essentially attempting to deliver the same teaching to the children despite school closures. Clearly they need to justify the fees so I’m specifically asking about state primary schools as I want to compare like with like.

[Gnome134]

My son is year 4. The school is using an App called Showbie. The teacher is setting English, maths and topic work (eg. Science, art, history or RE etc) each day. Also suggesting PE in the form of Joe Wicks and doing timestable rock stars and spelling shed. The children can either do the work online and submit it or upload photos of written work. The teacher can mark it and the children can view the marked work. The teacher has also videoed herself reading the class text. The school has set up an email contact address for each year group and it seems the Head is also on top of emails and sending info out regularly.
I'm really impressed with what has been set up. Getting the feedback from his teacher gives my son a bit of motivation... it's still a challenge to get him to engage, but once he gets positive feedback he is happy!

[scissy]

My DD is Year 2. School sent her home with some reading books, an activity sheet with links to tools and a couple of worksheets (to cover until Easter). They'll send us a new one via email after the holidays apparently, but I've had emails every couple of days from the head with either details of where to get resources or welfare info for those who need it.
The tools they're using include ReadTheory, MyMaths (School already had an account) and PurpleMash to set work across a variety of topics. The teachers are responding to all work "handed in" (the same staff who are also going into school on a rota looking after key worker children). I've been really impressed with them tbh, given it was handed to us 2 days after it was announced schools were closing!

[Sweetpea84]

Originally my kids school just had sheets and resources for the children to access on their website. They are now using an app called seesaw to put work on and communicate with the kids. They can upload work, pictures, videos and voice notes and then they get feed back.

The teacher had left a video message for my year 3 dds class to say she missed them, my daughter was thrilled to see her she loves school.

[Soontobe60]

Purple Mash are doing a free trial for a month for everyone. It's a great online resource, lotsbofnthe things can be done online, lots printed off. It covers all subject areas.

If your class teacher has been working in school, they have been directed not to also be sending work home. My school are technically on holiday now for Easter, although is open for keyworker children. We have also been advised not to do things like Zoom as there are safeguarding issues around this.

[Fennelandlovage]

State junior - full timetable with new downloads each day - pre recorded assembly every day and regular emails and special newsletters/ challenges for the kids. Teachers online to help kids with the work they are doing. Very impressed indeed and loving our school even more than usual!

Seems so disparate how schools are approaching this time which is going to cause problems for the cohort and that’s before you get to the kids that can’t access online etc. Such a strange time. Only time will tell.

[TwoZeroTwoZero]

My dc are yr 4 & 2. Their school sent home a pack each and included:

Some handwriting
Some sats style comprehension and maths work appropriate for their age
Some story starters and prompts
Some ideas for geography, history, RE and science.

Every day they upload worksheets, links to home learning lessons, daily maths challenges and ideas for reading and writing.

They've been clear that they don't expect us to do all of the work provided as long as we do some of it.

I've been following the home learning lessons on White Rose maths with my dc as well as the maths challenges, have found some planning and resources for novel study for the books they were reading at school, watched a few science clips and games in bbc bitesize and got them to do a bit of extended writing. They've also been working on maths sites on the tablet/chromebook. It sounds like a lot but it's only been a couple of hours a day and the rest of the time they've been playing or watching TV.

[BrightonBB]

Year 4. Nothing sent home. List on website of some websites we might find useful. Feel very let down especially as less than 6 kids out of 260 are in school for key workers. Lots of parents massively disappointed in the teachers.

[jan9876]

I'm a bit disappointed with dd's school I know they are under a lot of pressure, but I asked them what the plan was for after Easter, and they are just giving a pile of worksheets out to do each week. I thought they could have even done half an hour on zoom or similar for some class or teacher interaction. My daughter is an only child and Im really worried about getting her interested in her work - she gets bored of the apps and loses the will to do worksheets after awhile.

[Mitzdob]

DD YR6, has had twenty mins white rose maths. Nothing else.

[spanieleyes]

Daily maths lesson with arithmetic, questions and reasoning, weekly arithmetic tests, daily writing ( so day 1 plan , day 2 and 3 write, day 4 edit, day 5 improve) daily spelling practise, weekly grammar session, and over the week we have history/geog activity, art, music, PSHE and PE. In fact, pretty much what the children would get if they were in school.

[spanieleyes]

Oh, and access to TT rockstars, accelerated reader and dozens of suggested "fun" activities to participate in.

[dyscalculicgal96]

Very little for numeracy/math. We are a homeschooling family.
I print off a easy math worksheet each day. That is it. We focus much more on skills. For other subjects including literacy, I prefer to make up my own activities and discussion questions based on tv shows, films and books instead etc.
We watch a lot of online videos for geography.

Or we do a weekly essay type lesson focusing entirely on grammar or spelling. I do have some educational workbooks I bought last term before Christmas which we only use once a week. I use Twinkl for ideas and I have used other websites too. No emails from school.

[Hoppinggreen]

DS was sent home with a folder with some worksheets and SATS buster books, along with a lousy of suggested no line resources. It was very low key and “do what you feel you can”. We have had 1 phone call from his teacher but again that was very welfare based.
I am trying to do as much with him as I can but he’s not been very enthusiastic, my worry is that I know that the prep that feeds into the Secondary he is going to has a more or less full schedule (not at the moment as it’s Easter holidays) so when he transitions for Y7 most if his peers will not have missed much of their education, whereas other than what I’m doing DS will have had nothing. I don’t blame his Primary school at all but it does feel like a very big responsibility for me - “luckily” my SE worked has ended due to the virus

[winterisstillcoming]

Our school has sent home a learning pack for each child. It includes printed sheets of activity and some CGP workbooks. There are also tasks set on online platforms.

The answers are put up on Twitter with extension activities.

As Twinkl is now free for everyone I have printed off the year 2 parents resources for SATS. and I'm using them to supplement what school has supplied

I've noticed that handwriting and presentation is taking a nose dive and the younger one has already forgotten some things he should really have known by now.

[CaryStoppins]

Year 1 child - pack of twinkl worksheets and reading books sent home. A few activities set on Purple Mash and the teacher has been sending messages and reading stories daily on Seesaw but not really setting specific work.

Year 5 child has had a maths video and worksheet daily, a daily reading comprehension and English worksheet set sometimes with a video. Still getting spelling and maths tests every week and nudges to do TTrockstars and logins to a couple of other websites. Teacher available and responsive on email during school hours.

[IndecentFeminist]

Years 5 and 3 here.

An initial Google drive was set up with some docs and links per class, nothing since. Yr 3 teacher put together a doc with a load of ideas, yr 5 passed on links.

No marking, interaction, accountability though. I'm not concerned, as we have plenty of resources and the ability to cobble stuff together ourselves needs be.

The school have been massively emotionally supportive to the kids and families though, lots of social media stuff and reassuring them that results don't matter at the moment. More important I think at the moment.

If this goes on log after Easter I suspect they'll have to change things up. School is a small one form entry village school still open to key workers

[MinorArcana]

Y4, Y1 and nursery here.

The school issued home learning packs to each child a few days before the schools closed, containing English and Maths worksheets, and a list of suggested educational websites / apps. Basic trace the line type worksheets for nursery DC.

The teachers have been using ClassDojo to keep in touch and set work.
For the older DC, they’ve typically set English tasks and Maths tasks per day, plus another piece of work that’s science / geography / history / art based. And also they’ve sent more links to additional “fun” activities in between.
We’ve been asked to send the work the DC have done in for feedback via ClassDojo. The teachers usually respond fairly promptly to messages / work sent via ClassDojo during the school day.

Suggested play based activities have also been sent out for nursery DC, although the nursery staff are the only ones explicitly saying that the tasks are optional.

In addition, all DC have been given log-ins for Accelerated Reader online, the older DC have been set targets to read for 30 mins a day.
Older DC have got log-ins for Times Tables Rockstar and Mathletics, again, time targets are set. There’s a particular emphasis on times tables for the Y4 kids.

The teachers have also recorded themselves reading stories and sent those through for the pupils to listen to.

No attempts to do live teaching via zoom or suchlike, but there is plenty of work sent through - more than we’ve been able to manage at home TBH - and we can contact the teachers via ClassDojo, so I don’t feel we’re missing out by them not using Zoom etc.

[Mammyloveswine]

It's the Easter holidays.

[Mammyloveswine]

Also the union has advised that we do not livestream from our homes..

I'm a teacher and have been writing reports, analysing data, teaching the children that are in school... I log onto our online app daily to read a story/share what activities I've been doing with my own small children..

I have also prepared learning packs for after Easter... we don't know what is happening yet as we're initially told lockdown was for only 3 weeks... there has been nothing else from the government.

We are doing our best. We deserve a break. You will get work after Easter. Just enjoy this time with your children like you usually would in the holidays!

[IndecentFeminist]

I think most of us know it is the holidays 😂

[Danimow1]

I have children in Year 2 and Year 4. We have work uploaded onto the school website weekly, contact with teachers via regular Zoom meetings for the kids and their classes and on Dojo whenever we need it, and recommendations from teachers regularly for websites/YouTube tutorials and activities we can choose to do. There has been no pressure to complete a specific amount of work on a certain day, more an encouragement to do as much as they (and we) can manage and an acknowledgement that the well-being of the children and family comes first. I mark the maths and literacy work that the kids do and send photos to the teachers via the dojo portfolio, they can they give feedback if they feel it is needed. I think the school has handled it remarkably well considering they had a week to prepare. It sounds like we've been fortunate however.

[MadameGazelleIsMyHomegirl]

We’ve been given a daily quiz on google classroom and about 5 word docs with suggestions of useful websites. The school have said teachers won’t be marking work or talking to the kids as they will be ‘at home with their own children to look after’. This feels exceptionally tone deaf- they’re asking working parents to juggle working from home AND teaching their own kids yet the teachers won’t havd time to do anything but care for their own children? It pissed me off, especially as the school only has 9 key worker kids to look after so basically the entire staff are having a lovely extended break with their kids on full pay whilst everyone else tries to deal with work, teaching and taking on extra duties as their colleagues are gradually furloughed.

[MrsPear]

State school
Infant:
Daily email which has a pdf attached with a daily plan - at the top it lists birthdays if applicable, then a box with reading reminder, then another with daily words for handwriting practice, then English task and then maths. Then there are a list of weekly tasks - eg RE in Easter week was to retell the story, another time it was make a junk model of a castle, music was listen to the following on YouTube and discuss with a family member etc Finally there reminders for BugClub and mathletics

Juniors
Ds1 has a TOD and age too sends a daily email with a plan. He has mistake of the day for SPAG, English and Maths plus topic. An example of one day he had reading comprehension, fractions, mistake of the day, spelling related tasks, handwriting and science.

For both I print off the daily plan and organise books the night before / I’m not a morning person. Then they choose either maths or English after play in the garden then break then swap then lunch then topic work in the afternoon. I reckon three hours a day. I’ve learnt lots too especially when I had to teach about the circulation system

[MrsPear]

Also the infants have rung us weekly to check we are ok as a family.