Have your Primary School been in touch since schools shut?

[mumoftwodc]

Just wondering if your child's school has been in touch since school closed for lockdown. We've not had any personal contact, just general ParentMails and I'm wondering if this is the norm?

Yep - work plus emails and phone calls to us as parents and the children. Because they had as much notice as everyone else (ie none) I think they've done amazing and have really pulled it out of the bag.

We are getting work set via ClassDojo - weekly home learning plans, with resources (worksheets etc) to print off.

We’ve been asked to submit completed work electronically.
The teachers are contactable via the messaging bit of ClassDojo and are usually respond quite quickly to any messages.

We haven’t had any phone calls from the school. But there’s been a few general texts and messages from school that suggest that there’s quite a few kids not doing much (or any) of the work set so I’d guess that they’ll be more interested in calling those families.

No, no contact. No work set either apart from a few white rose maths sheets uploaded to the school website. I’m pretty pissed off about it.

Yes twice a week without fail, first to set the weeks work and second to comment on the work done. Also school as a whole are in touch all the time, singing birthday song to kids whose birthday it is. Daily story time by a different teacher each day. Plus other updates etc. They are really connected with parents and children. Also have their own food store, so if anyone is low or cant get to shops they will deliver a food package. They are amazing working 7 days a week.

We didn’t have any contact before or over easter but since new term we’ve had weekly phone calls from class teacher along with all the home learning resources they’ve been putting online and general comms emails from the head

Only a half hearted email , which was very generic and I could tell the name was changed each time . So made sure I responded with lots of information and lots of questions . The school haven’t been setting any work other than a book of print outs and links when we first went to lock down . My other child’s secondary are been very good - a phone call from teacher , an email from the head and regular contact from subject teachers .

@Duckchick yes lots of similar emails here from teachers about what they are doing in the garden/the fun they are having teaching their own children. Those have stopped in the last week or two though - I think they finally realised how ill judged they were

DC1 is in year 4. The week's worth of work is set on an app on Sunday. DC brought home log in details for it on the last school day but there are no instructions so I still don't know how to upload the work so the teacher can do it. She has confirmed by email that she can't see any work at the moment. The teacher rang a few weeks ago, but, apart from saying hello to me because she rang my mobile, she spoke only to DC, so I didn't get to ask about my problems uploading the work. I think that if you manage to hand it in you get feedback.
DC2 is in Reception. They regularly update the website with resources e.g phonics games, tricky word of the week, activities linked to a story with a link to the story read on YouTube. A few weeks ago I received a text from the school saying her teacher would phone the next day. I was at work that day and can't answer my phone at work, but the school also has DH's number and he says they didn't call. However, I am a keyworker so they go to school 2-3 days each week when I am at work, so the school knows they are ok from a pastoral point of view, so probably aren't worried about ringing to check up on them.

Only emails with info about home learning / possible school opening.
My sons are in year 1 and year 6, I haven’t yet been asked whether they are returning.
I’m not impressed tbh.
In contrast my dd’s secondary phone every week.

Yes, quite a lot on tapestry, every day on class dojo where the school work for the day is set out. Sons teachers have knocked on my door a few times to give out work packs. Even nursery teachers have showed up to see how we are. And we have had phone calls too.

DD in secondary just had emails and FB updates. DS in primary and I’ve had a call each week from his teacher and he has spoken to her too.

Child in reception class we have had nothing personal. Every week we get a upload of a mini lesson lasts max of 5 mintues so far its been to find things to make a picture in garden, fold a piece of paper and draw a picture as a card and post though someones letter box to make them smile and a song. Every week theres a upload to website class pages with work suggestions but its from our county council not the class teachers. I have spoken to head once and we have had 2 texts messages from them.

We've had regular texts to check that we're okay and to ask if we would like someone to call us about anything.

DD is also able to talk to her teacher on google classroom if she has any questions or worries. Her teacher has also phoned and talked to DD.

Then there is the daily feedback about the classwork that's been submitted.

At our school, teachers are only allowed to phone parents/children from the school office. Some teachers aren't able to go into school at all (shielding etc) so won't be able to personally call anyone from their class.

The teachers who are in to look after keyworker/vulnerable children are on a rota system. If they're only in once or twice a fortnight and need to be available to look after children who are in school, their opportunities to phone are fairly limited. Priority will be given to vulnerable families from their class and those who have asked for a call. If there's any time left after that then they will try to call any children in their class that they haven't yet spoken to. It's highly unlikely that they would have time to speak to all 30 families.

(The Head or Deputy Head will also have their own list of children and families to contact, including those whose teachers aren't able to come into school at all and families from other classes who need or want to be contacted).

My DS school no - although we can email and they respond very promptly with lots of encouragement. I haven’t needed any more that that as luckily DS is enjoying home schooling and doing well. If I need more support for him, I know it will be provided and I am more than happy with that.

The school I teach in - we phone everyone fortnightly and vulnerable pupils several times a week. Our teachers do have time to phone everyone but our parent support worker does a lot of the calls to vulnerable families.

We have not heard from ds teacher in the whole of two months and he’s in Year 1. We have a dojo and there is a messaging facility on there but not heard anything there.

@Gobbolinocat its absolutely nothing to do with how unionised a school is. The dfe set basically zero guidance about how learn-from-home should operate, so each head teacher has made their own call about how much should be done and set expectations for their staff team there. Sadly it looks like it's been a bit "pot luck" across the country.

I've been calling every 3 weeks (when in school, can't ring from home), monitoring and replying to our learning platform discussion board and direct messages, creating detailed learning videos for our children. But I know that's not happening everywhere.

No no phone calls there is a list of suggested “activities” each week but little guidance eg “wrote a poem about flowers” but no explanation on how to write a poem, example or indeed any chance to hand work in and get it marked so in reality he finds it too difficult to access without me doing a lot of googling to try and work out reasonable curriculum expectations for the year group, try to design some supporting activities and there is a fair bit of shouting and tears. Still I assume we will get there eventually and some people manage to home school all the time so it must be possible😂!

Personal reply to all the work and photos sent in (so about 3 comments per day) and one phone call.

which feels like plenty and I'm sure is a fully days work when you consider all the children and setting activities.