Live online lessons for primary school pupils?

[Localocal]

I'm wondering what most families' experience of remote learning is for children in state primary schools - what's "normal" at the moment.

If you have a child in a state primary, can you reply to say

1. how many hours of LIVE online teaching are they getting from their school on an average day?

2. how many hours of RECORDED TEACHING (recorded by the school's own teachers, not outside content) on an average day?

3. how many hours of RECORDED CONTENT from outside sources are they told to access on an average day?

4. is there an online daily registration?

Thank you to anyone who can share their experience.

1. how many hours of LIVE online teaching are they getting from their school on an average day?

NONE

2. how many hours of RECORDED TEACHING (recorded by the school's own teachers, not outside content) on an average day?

Maybe a 5min demo of a task by teacher. This has just started recently.

3. how many hours of RECORDED CONTENT from outside sources are they told to access on an average day?

Maybe 5min max.

4. is there an online daily registration?

NO

We use an online platform where work is uploaded, we print activities at home, complete them and then upload photographs each day. Teacher comments on any work uploaded. It works for us. I wouldn’t want my child to be obliged to engage with loads of screen time.

My secondary school child by contrast has 2-3 live online lessons a day and is spending up to 40 hours a week sat working at a laptop.

My own school has a policy of not doing live lessons to be as flexible for the parents and the kids at home who are fitting in the learning around everyone's needs and how they need to manage their time and tech at home. I have several pupils who would be being disadvantaged if we didn't as they submit their work on the weekend or evenings mostly, once their parents have finished working.

And thank goodness. My partner colleague is shielding and cannot attend school in person. She and I are sorting the online learning for both classes between us (it would be 3 hours just giving feedback if one of us tried to give one min to each piece of work for the 2 classes without sharing it) and I'm in person daily with the kw provision.

We don't set a registration either, for the same reason. And if we can find really good external recorded content that achieves the same purpose, we are using that.

We have a social/wellbeing check in on zoom once a week.
And record a few messages for the class for a few mornings a week.

Year 3 DD has more or less her usual timetable - 4 x 1 hour lessons per day via zoom plus her usual homework (reading, times tables and spellings). I’m a key worker so she joins in her class zoom lessons from a computer at school rather than at home

Year 4 Primary here:

9am - Literacy 1hr Daily
11am - Maths 1hr Daily
1.30pm - Science Tuesday and Thursday
1.30pm - PE Live Wednesday
2pm - Social fun Thursday (DS is SEN)

All lessons are Live and work is uploaded to class teacher for feedback.

We have had one no screen day where they had to make models and some kids won vouchers for Amazon. We have another non screen day this Friday too.

No live lessons here. We get recorded ones and English and Maths uploaded. Tbh I haven't been on the portal for a while. We're both working full time so had the choice of spending our evenings looking at the stuff in order to deliver it like we did last year, or just using that time for the kids. The kids aren't interested in our attempts to pass on this info and the videos aren't very good. One was a teacher spending 20 mins talking about the cover of the book they're reading (Y3) and although I get that this is part of comprehension but my god was it dull.

No teaching method is suitable for all children. Although live lessons aren't perfect, a mix of live and recorded lessons is very good I think. Our school have one teacher per year whose only full time job is to teach those at home so shouldn't be an excuse. My children do not engage if I print the stuff off, but if a teacher delivers it they're fully attentive. We've ended up having some 1:1 live lessons - 1 hour a week per child although the kids should really be in school as we're 2 full time key workers. I'm pleased for my kids that they have this but I can't see any reason they couldn't invite a few more kids. My son does an extra curricular class once a week with a qualified teacher and she has the interest of 30 X 7 year olds over zoom so it really can (and should) be done.

Schools shouldn't really cater their home learning to those who have a parent available - it should be accessible to those with working parents too and the only way to really do that for little kids is to be live and interactive. Otherwise all the website hits, video views are all from the parents!

ZERO live.

About 5-10 mins of recorded videos in each year group/day

Minimal feedback

It's shit.

We use a tutor now for maths and English. And Outschool for live lessons. Recorded/worksheets make even my mega geek super learner feel totally demotivated. Whereas he comes out of Outschool/tutor sessions totally buzzing (and he used to skip out of school buzzing with new info)

KS1

1. how many hours of LIVE online teaching are they getting from their school on an average day?

3 x 30 min sessions. Morning session with registration with either teacher led Maths or literacy. A mid morning maths or literacy session or assembly and a final class storytime and show and tell at the end of the day.

2. how many hours of RECORDED TEACHING (recorded by the school's own teachers, not outside content) on an average day?

3x 30 min sessions a week.

3. how many hours of RECORDED CONTENT from outside sources are they told to access on an average day?

1 a day Oak or White Rose and the odd You Tube.

Provision was appaling last year and lots of parents complained. To their credit they have really upped their game this time and we've been really impressed. The live sessions have really helped them stay connected with school and their classmates.

Dd is year 5. Although she is in school, they are still included in the teams for those at home in case they have to isolate, so they can flick between the two (although that isn’t a perfect Transition for all lessons).

The dc at home are following a very similar time table to those in school, with some of the teachers teaching the school bubble at the same time as those at home.

Each lesson seems to start with a power point and the teacher doing a live lesson and then goes to some independent work for a few minutes, then back to the live, much as I imagine a normal lesson to work In school. The teacher is fantastic and very enthusiastic.
The power point is posted at the start of every day and if you aren’t able to join the lesson, for any reason, there is enough information on it for parents to be able to muddle through I think. Obviously the live is better for the explanation. Working parents I know have said how much easier this has made it as the dc are Busy all day and able to ask the teacher if they are struggling with any of it.

Reception - 2 live lessons lasting about 15 minutes each. One is phonics the other maths. Follow up activities for both. There is also one other activity set via Oak Academy. Plus other website resources and PE tasks to complete as parents see fit. Year 3 - again 2 live lessons around 30 or so minutes each. Again one English and one Maths with follow up tasks that take around 40 minutes to complete. There is also one Oak Academy task set a day, plus other websites/PE/art tasks that can be completed if you want too. School encourage full participation in phonics/English and Maths and don’t worry too much about the rest. Each child has phonics/English in the morning and maths in the afternoon. I’m happy with this.

I should also add that English/phonics and maths tasks are uploaded daily and teacher feedback given.

9-10 registration and English
Plus work to do after
11-12 maths
Plus work to do after
1-2 afternoon registration and phonics and topic- could be RE or or art or science or PSHE depending what day it is
plus follow up work
2.30-3 reading group

All lessons are live and teaching those online at the same time as those in class

Also 1 whole school assembly per week and 1 KS assembly every other

No prerecorded or sheets etc the teaching is exactly the same as if they were all in school. With the only difference being that the work completed after live lesson is uploaded to be marked rather than marked in class.

@drmadelinemaxwell genuine question with concern that children are disadvantaged from not being able to access the live learning - what about the ones that can't access the recorded learning, either because their parent doesn't/can't get it for them or because it doesn't suit the child?

Isn't there a way to have some of both?

Primary school Y3/Y6 state primary.

Full timetable live online 9-3. Normal homework, quizzes, spellings etc.
TAs do interventions online/in person if child is in school in the afternoons

Friday afternoons are set tasks offline for teacher's PPA time.

Wednesday afternoon has also been added as the kids, parents and teachers are getting online learning fatigue so more set tasks then. And teachers do more interventions then too.

Pastoral manager on hand to deal with engagement issues, supporting families that need it.

I am so so so relieved reading these that our primary didn't opt for full time live sessions.

We would have hated 9-3 school at home.

Y1: every day there are live lessons for Maths and English (half an hour each), Story time (15 mins) and a brief afternoon lesson (10-15mins). Once a week each group has Guided reading. There aren't really any videos, although the live lessons are available to watch if you miss them. Then there are tasks to do after every lesson, online reading, online phonics games and videos, online maths games. It is too much for my DS and we are opting out of a lot of it. But I appreciate the effort the school is putting in, and the teacher has been very supportive of our decision not to do it all.

@Localocal

I'm wondering what most families' experience of remote learning is for children in state primary schools - what's "normal" at the moment.

If you have a child in a state primary, can you reply to say

1. how many hours of LIVE online teaching are they getting from their school on an average day?

2. how many hours of RECORDED TEACHING (recorded by the school's own teachers, not outside content) on an average day?

3. how many hours of RECORDED CONTENT from outside sources are they told to access on an average day?

4. is there an online daily registration?

Thank you to anyone who can share their experience.

My son had 45 min live lesson a day. Children who are only at home and not in school at all also have 1 afternoon small group live session a week with the teacher. No recorded lessons at all. Usually the Teacher produces a PowerPoint for us to read through 3 times ish a week (though this might be a twinkle resource ).

The teacher does a register on the one live lesson.

Mine are Nursery, Y1, Y5 & Y6 and at two different schools.

It varies from 3x 2 minute videos from the teacher (Nursery) to 3 hours a day live with the teacher, to 4x 30 minute live a week from the teacher + some bitesize/Oak academy.

Personally I prefer the approx 1 live lesson a day plus pre-recorded videos approach.

Year 5

1. 1 hour average

2. None

3. 1

4. No

Yr6 State Primary

1)how many hours of LIVE online teaching are they getting from their school on an average day?

30 mins which is just reading a chapter of a book

2. how many hours of RECORDED TEACHING (recorded by the school's own teachers, not outside content) on an average day?

None

3. how many hours of RECORDED CONTENT from outside sources are they told to access on an average day?

20 min White Rose video

4. is there an online daily registration?

20 min in morning

English and usually one other subject is via a worksheet. There are two classes per year. One teacher teaches KW in school and the other does the online s They alternate each week.

Very disappointed when previously I always praised the school.

Reception in a state primary.

8.30 - half an hour live lesson
10 - half an hour live phonics lesson
1 - half an hour live lesson
Twice a week at 2.30 - whole school live assembly.
After each lesson my ds has activities which we have to print off - phonics work or making a craft or science experiment which we have to photo/video and send in to be marked.
No recorded content.
No registration but we have the teacher and ta in every session and pretty sure the ta is making a note of who is there.

Thank you to everyone who posted here!

@Localocal

Thank you to everyone who posted here!

But you haven't shared your experience at all?

1. Because you dont have any children?
2. Because you are a lazy journalist trying to get fodder for a sensational lets knock schools article.

And now you are trying to push the thread up to get a few more people to do your work for you?

Yes @Localocal would be interesting to find out your experience?

@dogsarehairy and @keyboardworriers : I haven't shared my own experience because my children are not in primary school anymore. I have three teenagers in the house.

My job involves supporting families, many of whom are struggling with remote learning. Nearly all of them have children in primary school. Remote learning for older pupils, like my own, seems to be less problematic.

So I was looking for some insight into what's "normal" at the moment, just as background to help me support families better. I have no axe to grind with schools or teachers whatsoever.