home schooling!

[strictlymomdancing]

Any teachers on here with links and tips for home schooling? DD is in S1 and seems to think she's going to be on one big holiday!

All I can seem to find are stuff for English education.

Anything online for Scottish secondaries?

Not sure yet if our school are sending us anything via Google classroom.

Also is anyone doing online tutoring or teaching perhaps, and where could we find this?

We are sending out stuff through Google Classroom and communicating via Twitter. Please ( and I ask as a teacher on behalf of all my secondary colleagues) remember we not only have classes in front of us but we are trying to gather all possible evidence Folios etc today and tomorrow. We can't send out work for pupils at home too. I may be smarting from in post on my school's parent council FB clearly and quite unreasonably aimed at me. And it was wrong a serious of activities had been set in Google Classroom but cherub hadn't bothered to look

Its putting teachers under a lot of pressure.

I don't think my daughters school is the most up to date re: technology and social media so I'm not sure what we will get in terms of school work etc. I think it varies from teacher to teacher maybe. DD said her maths teacher is going to give them homework but nothing as yet from her other teachers.

At least she's not doing exams, but she could be 4 months behind if I don't keep an eye on her work.

Some parents will definitely allow their kids to have one big long holiday - what are you school doing @Lidlfix to monitor whether they are doing school work? I'm just curious as to how it will all work!

We (classroom teachers) brought that up with management last night. Should we be worried if a pupil hadn't contributed, submitted anything.

But all we can do is set work apparently. The vulnerable pupils will offered provision. But as we know they are the least likely to access it

Alternative view point - donning hard hat.
Realistically there are only about 3/4 teaching weeks left till end June. Next week would have been wind down to Easter. May is full of bank holidays and June is all about shows / trips / concerts. Good chance for S1-S3 to do revision / catch up of what they should have been doing all year.

me and DH arguing about this. He thinks if the school don't send DD anything then she doesn't need to do anything.

DD thinks I'm going to make her study/work all day which I won't be of course, maybe an hour or two of reading, watching educational you tube videos, practising her instruments etc.

I've told DD not a chance am I letting her friends in. Its always this house they gravitate to and its never reciprocated.

Give them time we have not closed yet. I will IT provision to work from home and your DD's teacher may be isolated and unable to post away equipment.

If you are on FB you might have seen the deluge of posts from teachers last night offering support. Contact them they might be working from home and able to give you pointers. I don't agree about not much work getting done in latter part of the year . I ramp right up at that point as the seniors have gone.

Personally my DDs would enjoy dicking about for a week being lazy and unwashed but that wear off and boredom set in. Find stuff she enjoys on other schools' websites to supplement her own.

I think schools first priority will be to those DC doing exams and those who are in a vulnerable position. I'm sure either work or recommendations of websites etc will be sent out as soon as they get their breath.

When mine were younger teens they had to come of screens and do something else for a few hours every afternoon as a minimum. They mostly read if they were indoors. I think a lot of the time can be pretty informal, maybe try to see what set texts are typical for an S2 so they have done a bit of advance reading at the correct level? Carol Volderman had one of the best maths books going for probably about that level unless DC are very mathsy.

Personally I think one of the key skills I wish mine had taken on board is learning actually how to study properly as it would save a lot of grief in later years.

I think for primary and early secondary, learning about routines, baking, planting seeds, doing some exercise (The Body Coach is going to do an online PE lesson on youtube every day) some reading, learning a craft, doing a bit of maths is probably enough. Board games, tv, computer games etc should fill the rest :)

I've seen a few posts about getting DC to write letters for elderly family members or for general people in homes which is a good idea I think.

I’d wait a few days, or a week even, for the schools to get everything sorted. We’ve all been reminded about Glow and the teachers at the local secondary have had to prepare 3 weeks worth of lessons, but nothing is live yet.

DD is asking if she's allowed to go to the park or have friends in here to play and I don't know if she should?

I think the point of closing the schools is to limit contact with others via social distancing. I think you need to consider the social distancing guidelines and take your cue from those. Given how many folk were shouting about them not closing schools and putting their DC in danger, it's a bit off to now let them go about their business as usual. That's just my tuppence worth but I don't have young kids anymore.

DD is asking if she's allowed to go to the park or have friends in here to play and I don't know if she should?

Absolutely not. No playdates. No sleepovers.

I have told mine that they are free to go in the garden, I might also let them out on their bikes if they are just going with their siblings and not stopping off at playgrounds.

Agreed Pineapple

My P4 came home yesterday with her Glow all set up and instructions for her to access it - they had also spent the afternoon in the ICT suite training for it. She did it all herself and teachers already got it populated with resources. Also sent home with school library books and we have the books she is reading in class anyway. School has also done packs for those without internet - all of them had some quizzes and resource ideas in their HomeLink jotter too.

We've got a dinosaur park in clay to finish off and paint, Mothers day / New Baby cards to design and a lot of story writing. Also doing a bit of processing so DD has designed her coronavirus poster to send to her Auntie in self isolation following repatriation from Far East. Might dabble with excel and virus modelling for sums practice and also to reinforce the effect of controlling spread by social distancing and hand washing - I love spreadsheets.

Ours do French and Spanish so might dabble with Duo Lingo.

Expecting great progress on the music practice front (or maybe not)

DH works from home all the time and DD1 is distance studying from Uni so full house and fair amount of quiet behaving required. Really thankful DD2 won't be stressing about her S6 exams.

For older kids - I have two teens and they're fairly tech savvy. Oldest is currently working out how to keep his dungeons and dragons group going using Skype or some other similar tool. DD tells me that there is a facility on Netflix whereby you can have a "party" with three or four others, all watch the same thing at the same time and chat along with the movie or show.

They're going to find it tough but aren't going to lose contact with their friends.

In Ireland, DD has 2 teachers actively teaching through Google Classroom (I think - DH is the techie in our house) and there is a lot of work being set by other teachers electronically. DD says that the majority of the class have been "turning up" to online classes, (although some apparently are still in pjs doing them...), and most have been submitting work due. We're a week in at this stage.

We have been making DD operate to her normal timetable - either getting the classes or doing the work set where that's possible, and where the teacher has not set something, to work on that subject and study what they have done so far (as exams are still officially coming in May) or to work on the next topic that they haven't done yet.

But still coming down for the regular break times etc. When she has a snack and chats to us and/or whatsapps the class.

Once school is finished for the day, she goes out for fresh air and exercise on the green out the front or into the small back garden if there are a lot on the green (it's normally empty but there are plenty of people who use it intermittently).

And keeping to a reasonable normal structure seems to be helping her to focus on doing schoolwork, but also keeping her occupied.

And at least 2 of the main educational publishers here have opened up a lot of online resources to all students and teachers for free - there may well be similar happen elsewhere.

DD's best friend, who she only met a few months ago in S1, does not have a mobile phone or any internet access. She is from a low income. DD says she's arranged to meet this girl at the park and is now worried about not showing up. I have no idea how they can keep in touch with each other otherwise. DD says she has asked for a landline number but her friend says she has no phone so seemingly not even a landline. Poor kid but how do I help them keep in touch?

@february08baby how about meeting at the same time every mon/wed/fri for example. That way they have a future plan if one of them has to self isolate suddenly- warn them they might disappear for two weeks. And if you have a printer then give her printouts of the work coming online. How sad!

@peajotter we've agreed DD can see her friend on Sunday as arranged but will need to tell her that it is going to be the last time for a while. I'm going to get DD to give her all her contact details - address, number (in case there is a phone somewhere), email address etc. I almost want to go out and buy that poor kid a phone. The things we take for granted

Is anyone else struggling to get on Glow?
We have all the details but it’s just not working!!

@PineappleDanish

How do you do the netflix party thing?

We have signed up to Khan Academy which has good resources for the maths ds3 is doing at the moment. His older brother recommended Free Code Camp (presumably for coding) and he’s been spending a fair bit of time on that and we are using Duolingo to practice Gaelic. His English and Gaelic teacher have both put work on Google classroom so that’s for tomorrow. He was supposed to make Empire biscuits in HE so he’s doing that tomorrow as well. I think we are quite well organised so far.

We are virtually self isolating for 12 weeks as dh is vulnerable so ds is keeping in touch with his friends online. Fortunately he enjoys his own company and will likely be completely happy.

Anyone got an S4 ? Obviously teachers are focusing on sqa arrangements but we haven't been sent any info or ideas on what dd can do. She effectively has no school work and nothing to do. We have talked about her starting her higher courses - anyone else in this situation?

day 1 going okay so far. minimal fuss from DD. phew

Thereply is your DD's signed up to Scholar? If so we have received notification that they are opening N5 resources to S3 pupils . She could have a look at BBCBITESIZE for her subjects , looking at poetry for example for English, would help her and the poems can generally be found online.

Sorry she is current S4 oops . Been sat in front of a screen all day, I will need a schedule . We have said to our S4 to start looking at the courses for Higher. For skills based courses (my beloved English) she could make a start . Look at some of the texts for Scottish Set Text and if there's any she likes the look read them for enjoyment.

Thanks Lidlfix, will check out set texts. It's really tricky - although luckily she is quite motivated to work.