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?

But even if the teachers were doing live lessons you’d still be in school lots more than them.

But the government said work from home were possible. And the teachers are wfh.

I know some people working in industry who have not been in to the office since last march. My vet ‘examined’ my sick dog via video call and got me to do the prodding and checking for him.

I deliver live as a secondary school teacher. I like it and see it’s value, but equally I know of other secondaries offering no/fewer live lessons and I understand their reasoning. However having seen my DD have a few lives from primary I can really see why it’s not seen as the gold standard there (except for check ins, show and tell etc) as she definitely learned far less than doing it non-live. And that’s no criticism of her teacher. I and DD adore her; she’s like Ms Honey from Matilda and hands down the most skilled teacher I’ve ever seen!!! I’d also not underestimate how long preparing and giving feedback on non-live work takes. I’d bet the teachers are working much longer rush their normal days when at home.

One thing I am conscious of though, that in some schools TAs are being put at more risk than teachers as they’re in more often, with more close contacts. Same as early years staff, and I find that really difficult to justify.

Our school has class teachers at home managing remote learning & all that entails whilst the majority of in school cover is non class committed teachers (those who cover teachers planning time or support for learning teachers).
Each group in school has to have a GTCS registered teacher & we've also timetabled a pupil support worker for each group. Previously it was a rota with everyone on which was difficult to manage & meant someone had to be organised to cover the online stuff if the class teacher was in school. Everyone seems happier with the current set up but I raised the fact that it's the same staff in school all the time (doesn't directly affect me as I'm a depute so in most days anyway) & therefore they were more at risk but staff involved were all happy with it.

I am grateful to live abroad at the moment and work in a school where we were able to keep the younger children in throughout but provided chromebooks for all the older children that needed them when we had to shift to home schooling (we are not doing it now). We did do live teaching - I mentioned it on here when we did it and was told it would be completely impossible and ridiculous to even suggest it might work in the U.K...

However I now find myself thinking on the other side. When we lived in England (in a tiny village) our broadband was almost non-existent. It was impossible to download even short TV programmes and we could never have things like Netflix because we just didn’t have the bandwidth. I’m wondering how we could possibly have coped now, dh works constantly online, as a teacher I would no doubt be trying to teach live and my two, school aged, dc would also be trying to access live schooling, there is no way we would have been able to do it. How are schools accommodating this sort of thing?

@Beach11

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

I don't read it as a teacher bashing thread. I've a friend who is a TA who is in full time working one on one with a vulnerable child but also helping with the other 18 children in the class - so over half the children are in school. Teachers are hardly in school at all with their safety being cited as one of the reasons, which makes it seem like the TAs don't matter.

I still feel that those advocating non-live lessons are generally well educated and can, at least partially, ‘teach’ the lesson plans the teachers are actually providing. In effect, the parents are becoming the teachers.

This, however, massively increases the divide in society as those children whose parents lack the time, skills or education to teach the lesson plans get left behind.

Out of my 30 Year 6s, 9 do not have a device of their own, so could not access live sessions. They are doing their work whenever they can get on line - two pieces of work were submitted at 10.15pm last night. Of those that do have their own device, many have parents and teenage sibs working online, so don’t have bandwidth to watch live lessons.

We are providing recorded teaching videos + a daily talk through of all the provision + a teacher online from 9 til 4 answering posted questions.

OP- as an ex teacher, you should know better than starting a teacher-bashing thread.

Quite a few of the teacher bashing threads are started by ex-teachers of a certain type. I've got a mate who has finally given up teaching after several years on supply and he still thinks he knows better than everyone else.

I don't actually think this one is one of those. It's in the right forum and OP is asking for advice because she's anxious like the rest of us.

My point was more the unequal shift system where ta's are putting themselves more at risk, being in class daily.

Because TAs can't plan lessons, so you are presumably being used to cover the times when teachers are setting work online. This is smart.

You do have a point of they are really only in one day and you are full time. By all means discuss it with the head- but go cautiously.

@reluctantphoenix

Most primary age children need parents to give them time to support the lessons anyway. You seem to be suggesting that with a live lesson you can just put a child in front of a laptop and leave them to it?

@Whynotnowbaby How are schools accommodating this sort of thing?
By saying if you cannot work from home, you have to go in to school. Just like any other workplace.

Imsosorryalan75

As a teacher basher I am sure know that

Teachers are at home planning lessons, marking and answering parental/child emails but not live teaching at all.

is still classed as working and not just one day a week.

As an Ex teacher you could always rejoin the ranks and lead the way in live teaching, I am sure that your head would love to do this.

@Imsosorryalan75

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.

Then make your actual point to the head and not whinge about the teachers.

@TheReluctantPhoenix

At our school most of the parent types that you describe are also the ones who don’t have the tech for live lessons.

We have persuaded 2 of them to accept school iPads, but broadband remains a problem.

@Whynotnowbaby

I am grateful to live abroad at the moment and work in a school where we were able to keep the younger children in throughout but provided chromebooks for all the older children that needed them when we had to shift to home schooling (we are not doing it now). We did do live teaching - I mentioned it on here when we did it and was told it would be completely impossible and ridiculous to even suggest it might work in the U.K...

However I now find myself thinking on the other side. When we lived in England (in a tiny village) our broadband was almost non-existent. It was impossible to download even short TV programmes and we could never have things like Netflix because we just didn’t have the bandwidth. I’m wondering how we could possibly have coped now, dh works constantly online, as a teacher I would no doubt be trying to teach live and my two, school aged, dc would also be trying to access live schooling, there is no way we would have been able to do it. How are schools accommodating this sort of thing?

We live less than a mile from edge of town. Up to the town boundary is super fast fibre broadband. We've got the old type. We can have one stream at a time, like zoom or Netflix. Even with prerecorded videos, they sometimes have to take turns. 9-4, the internet is even slower. It cuts out completely sometimes. One neighbour gets up at 5am to WFH for a faster connection. Mobile signal can cut out as well.

The Army is cutting the rent on thiß bàse due to internet connectivity bring shocking. Unfortunately, it's due for demolition in a couple of years so nothing will be done about it.

Live lessons are no good if they can't be accessed.

Some people, on MN mainly, think live lessons are the golden ticket. Reality is that for many they just aren't suitable and alternatives are a better solution.

I think some people think if there were live lessons their children would be focussed, understand everything the teacher told them, do what they needed to do first time etc, behave perfectly. It’s just not going to happen particularly at the younger stages of primary where they are likely to wander off, explore the range of emojis in the livestream etc, show their teachers their toys etc. Parents would need to listen to the lesson and still actually teach their children but at a fixed and potentially inconvenient time.

As an ex teacher, you should know that live lessons are extremely inequitable for a multitude of reasons.
Yes, there is scope for pre-recorded lessons but don't underestimate the anount of work that takes. It won't be feasible for some schools.
Unbelievable how many supposed professionals don't know the difference between equality and equity.

In our primary most teachers are in live teaching and TAs are in too, 5 days a week. The keyworker children are in as well being helped by the TAs as the teacher live teaches. The TAs are also teaching live break out groups on zoom. My primary DC has zoom lessons 9-12 every day with a short break at 10.30 and then usually has live afternoon lessons from 1.15-2.30. The teacher even does videos too for kids who are too tired to do zoom in the afternoon. Teacher is young, very committed, no kids of her own. It really depends on the staff and also the school community (how many devices) and amount of keyworkers children (out of 31 children, there are usually about 5 in and those with SEN are in every day which is best for them).

[quote KingscoteStaff]@TheReluctantPhoenix

At our school most of the parent types that you describe are also the ones who don’t have the tech for live lessons.

We have persuaded 2 of them to accept school iPads, but broadband remains a problem.[/quote]
That is definitely the situation here, sadly.
We've managed to get in as many of these children we can into school, at least part time. But we have so many critical worker children we are struggling to have more.

I disagree that live lessons are not effective! If used correctly with break out rooms according to ability and enabled chat function for questions they are working well for most DC in my son’s year 2 class. And by year 5 they work really well for my 9 year old. Once they get the hang of it some teachers prefer it too as they can gage better who isn’t engaging and needs further support. Precorded videos can be more stressful for certain teachers. We have been through all of it.

Last week I had 6 different TA’s in class with me. Ridiculously poor planning.

@Bekilted

I always like this picture which I think sums up equality vs equity perfectly.

If you don’t feel safe at work you should speak to your headteacher about it. It’s not the teachers fault if the school is treating the TAs badly.

ILoceMyMonkey an even better version of that picture I’ve seen has a third picture where the fence has been removed or replaced with something transparent. Take away the barriers!

@CuckooCuckooClock
I’ve never seen that version, I’ll have to have a look for it.

Have any of the people who don’t want live lessons actually had any? Because the difference in interest, engagement, discussion and therefore learning is huge. There’s going to be a huge gulf between those children who’ve had full days of live teaching and those who’ve had a few links to Oak Academy/ BBC Bitesize and a couple of worksheets.