Remote/Online Learning

[hosnav]

Can anyone fill me in on how schools in Scotland are approaching online learning?

My kids are currently at an International School in Thailand and we are moving to Edinburgh next academic year, so just interested to know how the approaches compare.
My two are in S3 and S4 and all their lessons are live on Google Meets. So basically almost exactly as they would be in school (minus the social interaction and hands on/group activities, of course!). The teacher takes a register at the beginning of each lesson, teaches, sets work and the kids then have to submit what they've done there and then. They even have to register for things like PE and are then expected to do an activity (which admittedly mine don't always do).

In the Primary end of their school they have live teaching every day for English and Maths from P4 to P7 and also group and 1:1 sessions every week with their class teacher. For Nursery to P3 they have one live morning session and then two 1:1 sessions in the week.
This is of course a private school but interested to know how it compares to both state and private in Scotland.
Thanks!

My two are at a private school. DS is in S6 so he’s pretty much finished up. The school started a range of optional short courses for the S6s and he decided to do Mechanical Maths (or whatever it’s called) but nothing else.

DD is S3. They are doing full school days. Most classes are done using whatever the video with Google classrooms is. The students usually, but not always, keep the video off. At first I think the teachers were overcompensating and far too much work was given out, but it seems to have calmed down now. One teacher does casual Q&A sessions on top of lessons which have been very useful. Some teachers ignore the timetable and do lessons at random times which invariably clash with other classes and cause needless stress, but mostly it’s working well.

www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-pupils-parents-teachers-learning-during-term-4/pages/1/

Has anyone read this and been able to discern what exactly we as parents should be getting from our schools?

I’m very disheartened by the seeming discrepancy between different council areas.

I’ve not broached this with our headteacher- they’ve already sent out pretty blunt emails stating we get given what we’re given and don’t ask for anything else.

@WickedGoodDoge sounds similar to my kids - teacher has their camera on and most kids have them off; though not always. @DannyDonut I would also be concerned that private schools appear to be doing a lot more than state. They are all going to have to sit the same exams at the end of the day. My son is doing his exams this time next year, so would be directly impacted - though as I said, his current school is managing to keep going really well.

@DannyDonut, don't bother. It is a waste of time. I have tried with my primary, but got nowhere.
Whatever the reason, bottom line the school is doing sod all, EXCEPT ticking boxes, so the council and the government are happy because the are doing "distance learning". Pity it is a totally fruitless exercise.

As promised by the school ds after a few weeks of barely anything he has started S5 today.

By 9:30am this morning he has 7 assignments in Teams, at least one for each Higher subject. Looked at them quickly with him (because I am nosey) and it looks like each subject is sending out 1-2 assignments each (so far). Each assignment contains some slides for them to learn the Higher work from, followed by worksheets to complete with a deadline sometime this week. Not sure how long each assignment will take.

I have encouraged him to take his time and make sure he understands what the assignment is trying to teach him, if he doesn't understand try to check for online videos, and not rush to just complete the worksheets.

I think he will be fine with maths, physics, chemistry as there is so much online to help if he doesnt understand something. French and English might be much harder, need to wait and see how he gets on!

Have arranged private tutoring
Not having mine at a (further) disadvantage when up against kids from private schools for Uni places in the next couple of years

User, what kind of private tutoring are you getting, is it online? I'm just wondering how they'll do it.

Yes online at present

@Superjaggy my son has Maths tutoring via Zoom and it's fantastic. He's had this tutor for four years and he was quite reluctant to move to online teaching but now that he has, he's realised how effective it is. My son perceives no difference in the quality of it.

I told DD to give the BBC Bitesize daily lessons a try and the Maths is ridiculously easy. DD did this work in primary school.

So either the person doing the lessons has no idea about the Scottish Curriculum or English schools are way behind us.

Some teachers seem to be "going rogue" on this. DD reports that they have a new (young) Biology teacher at her school who has set up their own You Tube channel. All the kids get the same powerpoint handout, but the teacher then films themselves going through the slides, talking about them, explaining and giving a sort of lecture while the kids are encouraged to take notes. No interaction or opportunity to ask questions, but DD is finding it much more helpful than just reading through the slides.

I wish my DDs school would do something like that.

The only YouTube interaction we get is the headteacher every week giving inspirational messages about keeping up the good work etc.

What work? She's not getting enough!

I am seriously worried about the long term impact of this.

I agree that there's lots of variation as to what's on offer, between schools and between teachers.

As someone who works in education though I'd like to defend the profession here - some of these teachers were already flying with methods for teaching online when lockdown was announced, some only went near a PC to check their emails. There was no magic wand to upskill staff or children who didn't already have the technological know-how. There certainly wasn't time either.

On saying that the level of upskilling that has taken place since then is incredible! There has been a huge amount of learning happening, it's just not necessarily in literacy and maths. Learning new stuff is exhausting - if our kids were trying to access 5 hours a day of live teaching they'd be absolutely shattered and stressed to the max. Teachers would be feeling the same.

SockYarn your DC's biology teacher's approach sounds great - I'd say they're ahead of the curve, but not on their own at all. I'd guess (although I may be wrong!) that they're not trying to manage their own kids' learning at home at the same time though .

@hosnav sounds great - I think there's so much potential for this post-lockdown!

'd guess (although I may be wrong!) that they're not trying to manage their own kids' learning at home at the same time though

I'd guess you're probably right. Have never met her, but she is one of the "straight out of the packet" just finished her first year probation and is probably 23 at the most.

Our school are “digital”. Each child has a Chrome book supplied by the school and a lot of their school work and almost all homework is done on It anyway so I think the transition has been much easier. The maths teacher does a video (up to about an hour) three days a week. He was doing it every day but parents were complaining it was too much! All other subjects send about 90 minutes of work a week except English Which is 2/3 hours. His guidance teacher messages once a week and failure to respond will prompt a phone call home (apparently- hasn’t happened yet) Ds is 13 and moved up to S3 the week after the Easter holiday which means he can concentrate on the subjects he is taking forward. I think the school have pitched it just about right.

@Vivid, are you in the private or public system?

@VividImagination wow that sounds ideal. that's what I would have hoped for.

DD is done in about half an hour.

Today's HE lesson was guess the chocolate bar and Maths was sumdog. She only had 2 subjects today.

She says she has RE due on Friday but its an inservice day / long weekend.

Our school do not provide chrome books. We had to purchase these ourselves and DDs friend has no internet or mobile phone. She was given some books to take home. no idea if the school have stepped up to help the family since then. I suspect not.

@Arkadia it’s a state school.

@nuttymomma the weekend before the schools closed I signed him up to Khan academy and bought the maths textbook he uses in school but, so far, haven’t needed to use either. Ds’s RE homework has been about different festivals. It’s actually been quite a lot of work. Reading this thread and hearing from others I think we are very lucky.

Weallhavewings your child wouldn't have had work for the last few weeks when they were in S4 - if things were normal they would have been on study leave/sitting exams in that time. As soon as the school moves to the new timetable it then becomes relevant to issue work. Would they complete it if given in subjects they weren't carrying on with? I'd be surprised!

RainuntilSeptember, You must have missed my previous post in the thread saying he would have been on study leave, so I wasnt expecting much in the way of work, but he did get some.

Dont understand what you are meaning or the relevance of your question... He did complete modern studies assignments,which he wasn't taking to higher, after school closed and first week back after easter, mainly because it still wasnt 100% clear what was happening with sqa. After that the teachers created new teams for higher pupils only in each subject.

I hadn't read your other post, sorry. It's just not the norm to issue work to anyone on studyleave. Some were encouraged to submit to give more evidence for the SQA, but it wouldn't be "new" work so to speak. Someone moving from 8 (or whatever) National subjects down to 5 Highers wouldn't be bothered doing work in any subjects they weren't continuing on with, what would be the point? Though I know some schools brought the new timetable forward. All the schools I know have started the new year now.