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?

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@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)[/quote]
I hate to break it to you but that Harvard piece, while not being applicable to primary school anyway as it is based on university students, is exactly what you're making out the OFSTED guidance to be as well. They're both just general advice made from observations and the difference with a university is that it is expected that everyone has their own devices as they would use these to complete work normally anyway

The Harvard piece isn't based on primary aged children but university aged young adults as has previously been pointed out

One is guidance based on the needs of primary aged children the other on the needs of young adults

I think every primary school should have a platform with online resources for the whole school year which just needs tweaking in the future. Our school started uploading everything to Seesaw from lockdown week 1 so now they can reuse resources from last year (just republish) and teach live. So they now have 2 full terms of resources online for every year group there.

Also, I reckon the head will not move teachers into different years in September to keep it simpler for them. The live lessons work really well including with break out rooms (differentiation) and those who need it are getting small group attention too. All whilst teaching keyworker and vulnerable kids at the same time.
The trouble is that schools that are well run with engaged parents and kids are going to get ahead even more compared to those that are not.

Sorry OP I don’t think I made it clear that all our primary teachers are in every day teaching live and most of the TAs are too to assist and some TAs are teaching small groups live on Zoom too in break out rooms and doing story time etc. Resources are printed off in packs every Friday for parents to collect on Monday morning. Live lessons are 9-10.30 with 30 minute break, lunch break for 1.20 minutes and afternoon live lessons too. The final period is meant to be PE which the kids at home do on their own but vulnerable/keyworkers kids do in school. State primary. Headteacher does online assembly for every year group on rotation too.

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.

It absolutely is happening. But not just with disadvantaged families. It’s also happening with naice middle class families who don’t have enough devices and/or broadband capacity to have everyone online at once.

My son's junior school really got their act together this time around after providing very little in the first lockdown. They provide 3 live lesson's a day with independent work on google classroom in between. On some days they have 4 lessons to include music or assembly or PE.
I find that live lessons really help to keep a structure and routine. My younger one in KS1 just gets prerecorded lessons (fair enough at that age), but she is really drifting as there is no routine or pressure to do it at a certain time/ day.

This is a state school.

I think this thread is relevant ....Should I mention this to someone at school? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/4149636-Should-I-mention-this-to-someone-at-school?msgid=104111809#104111809

The only thing I would add is that my dds year 5 teacher is at home and not doing live lessons (apart from a daily morning check in and afternoon ‘clinic’ for anyone who’s stuck) but there are video introductions to most tasks. But it is incredibly helpful to have her available and responsive on teams and that makes a lot of difference.