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?

@Perfect28

Thanks perfect, I’ll take a look. I’m working like crazy at the moment. My home is one big ongoing work place, so you’re probably right.

Have any of the people who don’t want live lessons actually had any?

I know many people who have had them, range of ages, from infants to sixth form.
Most of the younger primary families that I know of would rather not have them as they find the inflexibility of timings too difficult to manage, whilst also working from home and having more than one child in the house needing to access them.

They can certainly have their place but they aren't always the most appropriate solution to remote learning.

As said before, we don't do live lessons at my infant school for many reasons. The parents, on the whole, prefer our approach. Live timetabled lessons wouldn't work for the majority of our families.

@LadyCatStark

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.

In fact read the rest of your message now.

You do realise there is a whole manner of other solutions in between live lessons and worksheets/links?

Pretty much all the research shows that, in many cases, pre recorded lessons by school staff are 'as good as' live lessons. Infact in some schools they are better due to their flexibility.

You have a job that requires you to be in. End of. Many other people have to be too. Fairness does not come into it. We have pre recorded lessons only at our school and I am thankful for that. We moved from a private school where they did them last lockdown and they were no good for mine. We want to start school at 7am and finish early if we wish. If my child does not understand something we can rewind the lesson, they aren’t fighting with those who shout loudest on zoom or whatever. They do have one live session at 9 which is just a catch up. In my view live lessons are conducted at private schools and state schools where parents think they know best and demand them. They work for some
Kids but for many they do not and they are absolutely no substitute for in person teaching.

I’m surprised at the lack of working together between teachers to make their job easier and get parents onside.
If one teacher/staff member pre-records the reading of a carefully chosen book each day it could be shown to more than one year group. Others pre-record RE/history/geog/topic lessons with differentiated worksheets for each year group. A pre-recorded assembly covers all years.
Parents at home can show at a time to suit them. KWs in school can be shown same recordings.
Would that free up teachers time?

Equally do you need to be pre recording the lesson? Record it as you deliver it, and upload that.

A recorded live lesson isn't great as a learning tools for those pupils not accessing them live, generally. Anyone who has tried to use one will often notice this fairly quickly. A recording of a live lesson is often a poor substitute to a proper pre-recorded lesson. You approach them differently.

A properly prepared pre recorded lesson will usually be much much better. It's a different approach and a different way of teaching. For example, generally the picture quality and sound quality will be much better when properly pre recorded. You can approach the subject in a different manner. You add in 'watching instructions' such as when to pause the video, when to switch to a weblink, or view a document. Almost all work better, especially in terms of picture quality, than simply watching a recording of a live lesson.

However, I can see why some schools may just rely in a live lesson being recorded as the work load to do both is huge. But we should also accept that it's not the same and not as good usually.

@MumtoBR

I’m surprised at the lack of working together between teachers to make their job easier and get parents onside. If one teacher/staff member pre-records the reading of a carefully chosen book each day it could be shown to more than one year group. Others pre-record RE/history/geog/topic lessons with differentiated worksheets for each year group. A pre-recorded assembly covers all years. Parents at home can show at a time to suit them. KWs in school can be shown same recordings. Would that free up teachers time?

Just like in term time our teachers are working together. There are three classes per year group and each class, and often the key worker classes, access the same videos. One teacher will do English, one phonics, one maths for example and then the other subjects are shared between them too. I'm a HLTA at present so, like when in school, I do provide my subject specialism for every class across school. But this is how we work in school anyway.

However we aren't teaching the same thing to every year group. The curriculum is different across the year groups and we are supposed to teach to the curriculum and cover the same stuff as though we were in school where possible.

And class teachers are giving feedback to their individual classes, not to their subject areas.

@Xerochrysum

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.

This makes sense. We can’t all log on at 09.00am.

@Abraxan I wish my kids were at your school. 3 class intake for my kids. Registration for 10 mins at 850 is live. White rose maths video is posted to watch (very good). Then the only Iive ‘teaching’ is teacher reading a book for 20-30mins. That’s why I thought more working together would help. I get the point that it might not work across years due to curriculum (my apologies) but in our school I wish they would combine the work across the 3 classes. I wish mine would share pre-records like your school.
It would also help redress the imbalance between KW kids in school and those at home if all were shown the same videos.

[quote MumtoBR]@Abraxan I wish my kids were at your school. 3 class intake for my kids. Registration for 10 mins at 850 is live. White rose maths video is posted to watch (very good). Then the only Iive ‘teaching’ is teacher reading a book for 20-30mins. That’s why I thought more working together would help. I get the point that it might not work across years due to curriculum (my apologies) but in our school I wish they would combine the work across the 3 classes. I wish mine would share pre-records like your school.
It would also help redress the imbalance between KW kids in school and those at home if all were shown the same videos.[/quote]
You're right and I'm surprised the school aren't setting the same work and the same videos for every class in the year group.
But this is how my school works in normal term time. Planning is shared across the year group to avoid duplication and to ensure each class is having the same type on input. Teachers, in normal,times, may tweak lessons a little for the needs of their class, but the general slideshows and worksheets/activities are the same across the year group.

I'm doing some live lessons - never more than two a day. This is because:

1. My tutor group are applying for college and are emailing me forms with continual, multiple errors;
2. A lot of my tutor group don't know what to study next year and I am their go-to to ask for advice and I liaise with the careers advisor for them;
3. I have to ring three students or their parents a day. Because they don't realise my work load and actually are really lovely to talk to, conversations are often nearly an hour long. They need to talk!!
4. I get multiple emails from children (secondary) who should know better, but don't. "Miss the PowerPoint doesn't open." "Miss, I can't open the YouTube link" for remote lessons. I have to answer these or the work isn't submitted and I get it in the neck;
5. I got 57 emails on Friday, all needed actioning;
6. I've got to mark work. In fact, I mark everything because I want the children to stay engaged. It's it right to acknowledge and respond to their efforts. This is time consuming, downloading EVERY upload they've made. Sometimes just an empty Word document saying, "Here's my work Miss. I hope you like it." Which is sweet but takes seconds and time is of the essence.

To whoever has said upthread something to the effect, "When they realise how much fun it is to teach remotely...." NO TEACHER WILL EVER REALISE THIS. It may come as a surprise to you, but teachers love being in the classroom with your children. I love the sense of community school has. In the past two weeks I haven't laughed with any students. I haven't asked how one's baby brother is, how someone's sister is at university etc etc. Teachers want to go to school.

Also, to the OP, maybe you don't know the extent of their work. The three welfare calls a day are an imposition frankly. Despite me enjoying talking, no one is ringing me to have a lovely chat about how my two are getting on at key worker school.

Private here, live lessons during the morning, so English and maths 5 days a week, then the afternoon has two live per week, rest pre recorded. 5 days a week the teacher also does the morning chat and afternoon chat. Initially we had more video stuff but parents much have challenged it and it's about 70% live now. This is for reception in a private school. I now don't feel I could challenge the fees as they do a lot of work now.

OP, your thread would have turned out very differently if you’d titled it ‘teachers not in school’ or ‘teachers working from home’ or something.

Anyway, on the point you were trying to make, I’m a TA in school doing similar to you and I can’t see how else we could work things really. A teacher being in school at the same time as me doesn’t make my risk any lower, actually the more people that stay at home, the safer I am.

It’s irrelevant what the teachers are doing, because my job needs me to be in school.

@DBML no worries thanks for not taking my comment as offensive (from one busy teacher to another!)

If you're secondary science and looking for interactive stuff, try nearpod.com, it's free and they have loads of premade lessons and interactive stuff!

@Perfect28

I will definitely check that out! Thank you.
Take care :)

My DC's school do live lessons and the feedback has been completely positive. It's much easier for working parents who don't have to try and help with activities. I do nothing, kids log on and get on with the work and get help as needed from their teacher and get to interact with their class almost as in a normal class (except no practical tasks obviously).

Also they're not always on the screen they do their work in their books but go online to check the answers with their teacher. Or take photos and send it in.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@Norestformrz,

Was that the same quality of OFSTED used when they wanted to see evidence of whether someone was a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner in every lesson?

@LittleBearPad,

Can you cite me some evidence that disadvantaged learners benefit from prerecorded lessons? What do they do if they are stuck? An e mail exchange is not easily accessed by someone struggling and many just don’t engage at all.[/quote]
Cite your own evidence for the opposite view. This isn’t an academic debate.

However try to imagine a disadvantaged family, four kids, one laptop lent by the school, maybe a tablet and a parents phone - limited WiFi and few quiet places to sit and concentrate It’s not a completely unlikely scenario. It makes accessing live lessons for all the children pretty hard.

You seem to think all children have tablets, rock solid WiFi and a quiet place to concentrate. It’s simply note true.

With recorded lessons they can take turns. It all becomes more possible.

@LittleBearPad,

TheReluctantPhoenix
@Norestformrz,

Was that the same quality of OFSTED used when they wanted to see evidence of whether someone was a visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learner in every lesson?

Since it's not based on individual inspectors visiting schools but on wider research evidence what do you think.

No live lessons at my son’s primary. He’s year 6. Tbh I’m cross about it. A bit of live teaching would really motivate him.

I’m fed up with school anyway. I’m sending in his work and nothing has received any feedback.

Lessons seem haphazard. I think our school has been poor. Not sure what the teachers are doing.

What is it you're expected to do whilst in school and what would you be doing if at home?

If you're looking after students in school, then I guess that's something you can only do at school and not at home. A teacher can't look after students at school as well as all the planning, marking, making video lessons etc. They can also do all of this at home so no need to be at school.

I'm wondering if this the difference? It depends on what you are actually expected to do.

@Norestformrz,

I have been looking at the OFSTED guidance and it does not seem to be linked to meaningful research (or any research). It is merely a self-serving opinion.

Here is a Harvard University piece on advice about remote learning (which seems better quality to me) that suggests a carefully planned mixture of synchronous and asynchronous learning.

teachremotely.harvard.edu/best-practices

@LittleBearPad,

Your idea of a disadvantaged ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ style family all taking turns to watch the prerecorded lessons and then conscientiously completing all the tasks and responding to teacher feedback is a long way from what is actually happening in the vast majority of cases. More likely, those students will just go AWOL for the period of lockdown.

I cannot get my head around teachers preparing their own videos and then setting tasks around them. It is a PGCSE/NQT teacher’s most common failing, believing that they can create unique resources and then tiring themselves out so doing.

This is like a perversion of flipped learning where the teachers get to do the part they are least good at (resource preparation) and abdicate the most important part (teaching, encouragement and assessment of pupils)

@TheReluctantPhoenix
Im sure you're aware of the difference between university students and those in primary schools.

Here is a Harvard University piece on advice about remote learning (which seems better quality to me) that suggests a carefully planned mixture of synchronous and asynchronous learning.

I'm not sure 4-7y, who I teach, can really be compared to university aged students in another country to be honest.

If you find some peer reviewed research that tells me that 4 and 5 year olds benefit more greatly from live lessons, even in disadvantaged families, or households where parents are balancing wfh, one device between 4 or 5 and rubbish internet, then fine. Until then I think I'll trust that as a school we know what is best for our particular catchment.

At my primary, we are doing live English and Maths lessons following a daily live welcome/chat/assembly. The foundation lessons are being delivered by prerecorded videos via Google Classroom. Paper packs to use for the work supplied weekly. Plus calls home weekly (or more if requested).

Whilst the live lessons are great for some, they are not so good for others. We've lots of kids who cannot access them for various reasons. They also take a full hour whereas a prerecorded video is usually around 15 minutes, with the children being able to replay the examples or key bits if they need to look over it again. So, I have mixed feelings about them really.