What should we expect from a primary school during school closure?

[Pitaramus]

Its clear to me that schools won’t be back for some time. I’m trying to work out what I should expect from my children’s school during this time without being unreasonable and expecting too much.

Me and DH are working and have 2 primary aged children and a toddler. We’ve been cobbling together work for the older two during the days to keep their routine over the last two weeks of term and the holidays and taking it in turns to do homeschooling / childcare / our actual day jobs. It’s tricky!

I was hoping that from the beginning of this coming term the school would provide some online teaching to actual teach the children rather than just send them off to get on with worksheets but we’ve now been told they’ll be setting a bunch of work a week at a time. I don’t think it will be marked, just set and then they will be left to get on with it.

This leaves me as the teacher which would be fine if I didn’t have a two year old and a job! In the circumstances I was hoping for a bit more from the schools.

Both my children’s teachers are child free and from what I can tell they are on a rota to be in a local school with key worker children (I think once a week). So this isn’t a question of them not having the time to do more. They are both really enthusiastic teachers and seem to enjoy their jobs.

Is it unrealistic because of the age of the children to expect them to be able to teach the children remotely, say by sending videos and then setting work and marking it and providing feedback? Obviously there is no perfect solution but I need to understand the reason why they are approaching it the way they are and not doing more so as to decide whether to contact them / the headteacher or whether to just leave it and carry on as I am. I don’t want to be unrealistic or unreasonable in my expectations.

I’d be grateful if any teachers could give me an insight into why they are approaching things in this way or whether they could be doing more.

Not much. Schools realise that working FT and trying to educate kids is impossible at primary age. Most are offering stuff you can do, but little is actually expected.

Your kids are in primary school, theyll be fine to miss a couple of months. Do what you can, but dont stress it.

1. Because they're not required to provide teaching. There'll be lots of BBC stuff from Monday, apparently, which will support parents and teachers in providing education.

1. Because some families have internet and available computers, some don't. Some will accept photocopied work into their house, some will see it as a transference risk. Some parents will have little time to do this stuff with their children, some will have more. Etc.

1. Teachers may want to provide lots but are prevented by headteachers/SLT/governors or just lack of technology at home.

Sorry you're disappointed by your school. Perhaps now there has been some time since lockdown started, your children's school will be more up to speed after the holidays.

There are huge (and very valid) concerns among the teaching community about teaching via recorded video and live streaming. There's huge potential for the video to be distributed, audio/video to be distorted, memes to be made...it is not something that teaching staff signed up for.

I think it is unrealistic to expect live teaching.

I also think it is unrealistic to expect much more than pointing to links & worksheets. There is quite a lot on youtube, your teachers don't need to be making their own videos.

You really need them to just keep 'ticking over' in Maths & literacy skills, anything else is a bonus.

Can you and your DH work 'shifts' so you have an adult available more often? Then use screens a bit more than ideal for the toddler whilst doing stuff with the older ones (or give one of the older ones the task of doing something with the toddler while you work with the other, then swap).

Use the new BBC resources. Set the kids a 'project' that you guide?

At the moment shifts with the older two and screen time for the toddler is exactly what we’re doing. Part of the problem is that our children were already under achieving in school before all this happened so we were already worried about them both - lots of behaviour problems in their class making it difficult for the teachers to deliver the lesson.

I know lots of kids at private school and their schools have been live teaching over the internet since the beginning of lockdown (obviously breaking for the holidays). I wasn’t sure whether that was because it was actually an effective way of teaching or because they needed to do something to justify charging their fees / show willing, whether it worked or not.

I’ve heard talk about the safeguarding risks of things like zoom but I’m still not really sure what those risks actually are. I use it with work for incredibly confidential calls and no one has suggested it’s a problem.

Thanks for the pointer towards the BBC resources, that sounds good. I will check those resources out on Monday.

What we’re really lacking is access to the teaching scheme books for middle child. There are a few of his level free on oxford owl but we’ve over read those now!

Have a look here www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize

Yes, private schools will want to continue to offer education as much as possible, especially because many are still charging same or only slightly reduced fees for next term.

Risk with Zoom is no end-to-end encryption so can be hacked - there was a news story about a lesson in Thailand (?) where porn was shown by a hacker. Also, generally, potential teacher safeguarding about putting videos of themselves online, open to abuse.

Not sure what you mean by "teaching scheme" books, sorry. Schemes are usually planned out by individual schools, or heavily adapted from existing, or bought in, so there isn't one book used by all that can be purchased by parents. Not sure how old your child is, but you could try the CGP books for their year/key stage that will have explanations and perhaps Rising Stars to cover some maths and literacy.

Let’s not forget that they’ve all only missed ten days so far. Afternoons are usually PE or other activities. Take away lunch times and breaks and they’ve not really missed that much academic input!

Even within school filming/pictures are a safeguarding minefield. Teachers are told not to use personal devices to hold pupil data.

Broadcasting from home - whether live or prerecorded and/or having virtual contact with pupils outside of the heavily monitored school setting is a no no.

Our primary school have only provided us with links. Very very fortunately I’m in a position where I can dedicate my days to educating both my kids so I’m not too concerned. Really looking forward to seeing what the BBC are going to offer.

I think your school is doing pretty much what most of the primary schools round here are doing.

It would be horrendous having to log on at 9.45 for DS1, 10am for DS2, all while DH is working online too. The juggling and computer requirements would be ugly! Much better, imo, to have things that can be done at a time to suit your family rather than an arbitrary timetable.

If you work on the fact that all kids get to year 11, that is 12 years of school, 36 terms. Missing one term is less than 3% of school time. Obviously, the closer you are to the end, the bigger the impact, but at primary, I really cant see it being the end of the world.
Keep them happy, keep them healthy, keep them moving physically, and do what you can with the school work.

Yes, perhaps I’m over stressing.

Sorry for the confusion @SallyLovesCheese, I meant the banded reading scheme books, autocorrect did something weird to get to teaching scheme!

I shall just crack on with a bit of reading / writing, a bit of maths and a bit of David Attenborough for now. And I’ll check out the bbc bite size stuff as well.

I still think the teachers should be doing a bit more and at least be marking and feeding back but I don’t think I feel strongly enough about it to raise it with them.

My colleague's partner teaches in a secondary school and he's being required to provide virtual lessons (I think via the SeeSaw app but I may be wrong about that), and has no problem with doing this.

Maybe it's not what 'teachers signed up to' but I don't think anyone 'signed up' to an intermediate period of our children being unable to attend school and get an education - we all have to make adjustments and accept that the landscape has changed.

Are primary school teachers really more concerned about 5 and 6 year old children making memes of them, or that someone is going to 'porn bomb' a zoom lesson, than they are about trying to do their best to continue to educate our children (which I'm pretty sure they did sign up to), in times that are challenging for everyone?
Jesus.
Actually.
Wept.

Oxford Owls.website is offering free access at the moment and has access to the banded books. Some have activities attached and there are also phonics explanations if you need them.

Sorry, just read that you have already been on Oxford owl, but there are loads of books, have you signed up or just accessing the freely available material, as if you log in all books are available now for free. If you child has read all, is it worth looking at the next level even if you need to help a bit. I'm letting dd have a bash at whatever she faniciees and her reading has come along loads

Hi op. Practically speaking, how do you want the work marked? Are you working on worksheets?

It's not unrealistic generally speaking as that's what schools are doing in my country (and they set it up within 48 hours, not a day of education was missed) but it's very possible its unrealistic for individual classes/schools/areas as it highly depends on the children having their own access to devices connected to the internet and have their schoolbooks and other necessary materials

30 5 year old kids in a zoom chat with an objective of teaching them?

Jesus.
Actually.
Wept.

This is really boring now!

Ask the school!

How do you think anyone on the internet can tell you what’s going on in your child’s school?

Some countries had national guidance. UK focus was key worker children. Lots of reasons it didn’t happen here. Mostly awful funding and technology combined with lack of both those things in the home.

I’m confused why people think live teaching is the magic wand though. Maybe with secondary kids, but live teaching primary kids is not necessary. Parents would need to support their children regardless of a talking head on a screen.

UK also focused on WFH - they did not provide UBI. Therefore, lots of kids are at home with working parents. Can you imagine the uproar, if all children were required to logon (with adult support!) by 9am each morning! And sit through live lessons followed by directed tasks?

I think people just want to be sure that teachers aren’t sat on their arses, or for them to be on unpaid leave.

If you want to complain, complain to your child’s school.

@Saoirse7
exactly that, it would be a spectacular waste of time - but of course then we could ‘prove’ we’re working.

Imagine if 5 year olds just needed a talking head on a screen! 😂 clearly @girasol has never taught Reception!!

Right, im not a teacher. I hope a teacher is able to explain how they actually teach. But from my lay perspective ( I work in a primary school in admin) basically the younger the child the less time they seem to spend sat listening to a teacher stand at the front and talk and the more time they spend doing stuff related to the talk. The talk bit might only be 10 minutes. Then the teacher sort of walks round directing the practical stuff. They respond to the feedback and questions of the pupils too, adjusting the learning so they might reduce it or bring in more stuff depending on the response. I can see how this is impossible to do online. They could talk but not get the feedback. And they cant expect the familes to have set up the supporting activities, even to have the materials like deins, number lines, beads etc or be able to direct them. I am sure there are ways to teach some things online but thats not how they are used to teaching and they havent had much time to learn or work it out.
And the safeguarding issues with zoom are huge.

A side issue: most people asked to work from home are provided with the wherewithall to do so, namely a laptop and the required software to do their job.

I don't know of a single teacher in my acquaintance who has a laptop paid for by school. Every single one of us has had to buy our own.

Bear that in mind, please, before demanding live online teaching across the board.