Teachers not doing live lessons

[Imsosorryalan75]

As an ex teacher, I know how hard it must be to be working online. I'm now a TA but my stress levels over lockdown are sky high. Before I approach my head, I wanted some perspective from those in the thick of it as it were.
We currently are on a rota system in school but Ta's days in school have just been increased. We are now working 5 days week compared to teachers, who are working 1 day a week in class. Teachers are at home planning lessons, marking and answering parental/child emails but not live teaching at all.
Is this justifiable? How is it working in your school? I guess I'm wondering why it's ok for us to be in every day at increased risk to us but not teachers?

I think it depends on their reasoning. But I am shocked there aren't teachers in school at all times? We have a weekly rota for teachers at our school. And LSAs come in depending on need. So those with 1:1 children are on every day because those children are. And we can't rota as there are not extra LSAs. Plus, it is then mixing outside of bubbles. So currently I would do a week while my colleague is at home and then we swap the next week. Our LSAs are in all days every week as their EHCP children are. But we are delivering live lessons .

I think not doing any live lessons is inexcusable.

If a teacher did the same at school, it would be called lesson planning and marking, not teaching.

I find it bizarre that some (increasingly few) are arguing that this is teaching and providing an education. It is making a statement that classroom teaching has no value, which is the antithesis of a teacher’s normal belief.

I think some schools are not doing it out of fear. Once they started, they would realise it is a lot more fun than teaching with all the interest removed (where they are now).

Have you seen the OFSTED guidance ...they recognise that live lessons aren't always the best way to work. It states: “Some think that a live lesson is the ‘gold standard’ of remote education. This isn’t necessarily the case. Live lessons have a lot of advantages. They can make curriculum alignment easier, and can keep pupils’ attention, not least as the teacher has more control over the learning environment. But live lessons are not always more effective than asynchronous approaches.
“There are some specific difficulties in doing live lessons. It can be hard to build in interaction and flexibility. This means that giving feedback can actually be less effective than when we use recorded lesson segments followed by interactive chats, or tasks and feedback.
“Using recorded lessons produced externally can allow you to easily draw on high-quality lessons taught by expert subject teachers. The challenge here can be to make sure they are integrated with the curriculum.
“Because evidence suggests that concentration online is shorter than the length of a typical lesson, filming a classroom lesson may be ineffective.”

Our head has said no live lessons for safeguarding reasons. But 1:1 is ok?!

We don't have any live lessons. It's great. I prefer pre recorded lessons to live lessons, since dc can access when convenient. And teachers are great, as soon as dc ask the questions, it will be answered swiftly.

OP- as an ex teacher, you should know better than starting a teacher-bashing thread. Sham on you.
Support your colleagues

We have about half TAs in and half supporting home learning via phone and google meets. Class cover is mainly PPA staff (who are usually part time but full time now) with a couple of usual teachers. Teachers are at home recording lessons and assemblies plus doing small group and one to one live lessons and reading. It feels like it is going brilliantly but everyone is exhausted already and we are only three weeks in.

Both my children's teachers are in class full time (for usual timetable, not PPA) while simultaneously supporting the children at home. Not live teaching, but resources, prerecorded videos, answering queries. Both lot of kids on same curriculum. And phoning parents weekly to see if they need anything. Any question about work has been answered within about 15minutes.

Honestly, they sound exhausted and they are effectively trying to do two jobs at once. The home provision isn't perfect, but it isn't lack of effort.

I thought live lessons would be good but videos etc are a lot more flexible. No need to make sure DC1 is online at 10am etc to do this live lesson then DC2 at 10.45 whilst juggling my own calls etc. It’s also better for families where they are sharing tech.

Of course you'd rather be at home, but honestly this is shit for everyone. Teachers aren't sat at home loving life, I promise you!

The teachers don’t need to be doing live lessons to be busy working all day. If they are in school then they are spending a whole day giving their time to a minority of their class. If they are at home they are emailing, calling, setting work and organising a huge majority of the class. If they are in school then when are they supposed to be keeping up with the rest of the class? And if you are at home whilst they are in school what are you doing that adds the same value to all of the children at home? Are you answering all the emails, setting work, marking work, phoning parents? If so then you shouldn’t be as you aren’t a teacher. If you’re not then what are you doing? A TA has far more value in school.

And as others have said the teachers are online throughout the day answering questions etc. They are managing and disciplining kids whose use of the live stream etc isn’t kind to other kids as well. It’s not as good as school but it’s a lot better than last year.

Honestly, they sound exhausted and they are effectively trying to do two jobs at once. The home provision isn't perfect, but it isn't lack of effort. Agreed.

No live lessons or pre recorded lessons here. There is a 1 hour timeslot for each year everyday when the teacher is available online to chat to and ask questions. The work everyday is watch a YouTube video on a certain maths problem, attempt the worksheet. Read chapters x,y,z of the class book, attempt the worksheet, some sort of YouTube video and worksheet on 'The Environment' which is the class topic. Watch countdown and see how many points you get. That is it. Every single day! This is for year 6.

Our DC's 2 form entry school split each year group team of teachers and TAs into either home or in school teams. So one set of teachers/coteachers/TAs are doing live sessions, planning and marking of home learning and the other set are in school teaching, planning, marking as usual. Both teams seem to be preparing videos (in year 3 one teacher is doing all the maths and the other doing all the English and reading). Pretty good system. I've DC in Reception and year 3 and it's the same set up. It means that DC7' pregnant teacher is permanently at home too which is great.

I shudder at the thought of live lessons. I LOVE the timetable our school provided with lots of recorded but no live lessons. Love the flexibility of it and the opportunity to heckle the teacher.

Could you be doing stuff at home? The split seems unfair and that would bother me.

Youhadme,

All private schools provide live lessons and pupils are making progress. Many who could moved from the state to private system after the first lock down because of this.

Every child should have a device of their own now. Parents should buy if they can and, if they cannot, there are so many schemes, from government schemes to school sponsored schemes to charities, which will provide both device and internet access.

Schools were invented for a reason. When children see their teachers and their classmates, even electronically, they are just so much happier.

It is also the best way to maintain routine and help with pupil engagement.

Not every lesson (or even close) needs to be live, but I really question the commitment of schools that provide no live lessons.

No live lessons in our school - teachers appreciate that not all children have access to devices at any time of the day - many are shared between siblings and parents

There is no requirement for live lessons in the government guidance.

Your preference for live lessons may not reflect what other families at your school want. At my school we have had 3 enquiries for parents for live lessons. We have asked families their feelings about this and the overwhelming feeling is that families do not want to be tied to a specific schedule. We have many families sharing devices, or managing home-schoool around their working patterns. We have a lot of families who do shift work and want to structure their day around that.

My DC do one live session a day. I have them home on the two days I'm not in school and quite often we can't access the live sessions because both DC and DH (secondary teacher) all have live sessions at the same time and the broadband doesn't cope well. DH and I have laptops and the DC have their own tablets, but one tablet can't be used for Teams because it's too old and Teams doesn't always work properly on the other one. They can't see when the teacher shares the screen. Then they have to use my laptop which means I can't get on with my work. If they miss the live session because it's at a time when we can't manage it, they have missed the lesson, unlike with a pre-recorded lesson that we could watch at a time that was convenient for us.

I’m really disappointed with our primary school who aren’t doing any live lessons or pre recorded videos. They sent out a very defensive email yesterday saying they are following the remote learning guidelines that ‘interaction, assessment and feedback’ is happening, but no idea how they think this is happening. To be fair, when I send in a photo of all the pieces of paper my kids have produced in the week we get an email back addressed to the child, but they don’t experience that as feedback or interaction. Maybe they are too young to get it.

I don’t want a day of live lessons but I would love some contact from the school so my kids can feel some sort of connection with their teachers/classmates.

Every child should have a device of their own now

We have been provided with laptops by the government so that each family at least has one, but their certainly aren't enough for each individual child. We have prioritised so that no more than two siblings need to share. I teach KS1 and the government laptop scheme doesn't even apply to them, although my school has tried to include them.

No live lessons at our school or my sons. What happens when you have families with multiple children and minimal devices? What happens when a parent has to work at the time of the live lesson and the home internet won’t support both? What happens when you have a child who can’t work the technology themselves and the parent can’t support them at that time. Live lessons are not recommended and are not that great.
You haven’t said what the set up at your school is, we’re 2 form entry so have 1 teacher and 1 TA in school class facing with the key worker vulnerable kids and 1 teacher and 1 TA at home dealing with the online stuff, contacting every child, pre-recording videos, creating lessons which will work at home and at school and uploading everything. We’re on a week rota so then we swap over.
At my sons school, 1 form entry, the teacher sits in class with headphones on looking for videos, answering emails, pre recoding stuff, downloading oak academy while the TA plays the pre recorded videos for the key worker vulnerable children and supports them through their work.

There’s no one size fits all and schools are doing there absolute best in a really shit situation.
If you aren’t happy why not speak to your head rather than teacher bashing because you think it should be done a certain way and it isn’t.

Forgot to say that Reception DC has two live calls a week with a small group of children and a teacher and TA,.plus a while year group 'assembly'. DC7 has 3 30 class calls and an assembly each week.

Lavender,

Schools and communities are also helping not just the government.

I admit that KS1 (and even early ks2) might be different, I know much more about late ks2 and secondary, with subject specific demands.

Our DC's 2 form entry school split each year group team of teachers and TAs into either home or in school teams.

I usually like teaching in a one-form entry school but I must admit the remote learning would have been a lot easier to organise in a 2 or 3 form entry school!

I do agree that schools should try to do a regular live catch up at least though. We do this and keep it social so that children who can't make it don't miss out educationally but all get an opportunity to feel connected to each other.

Thanks for the messages. I'm not an advocate of live lessons. My point was more the unequal shift system where ta's are putting themselves more at risk, being in class daily.