Your average Comp has a wide catchment area of advantaged and disadvantaged, so?

[worldsworststepfordwife]

How on earth are teachers going to manage lesson time when they get back? What will be the starting point? One that suits the children that have done nothing at all or one that has used all the resources the school has provided every day?

God knows.

And all these memes saying ‘don’t worry if your kid has done bugger all work, we’ll catch them up’ are basically lying.

I will be assuming that all pupils have done the work I'm setting now. If they haven't then they'll need to do it when they get back, but the most I will be offering as "intervention" will be access to the instruction videos and worksheets I have already set now. The younger pupils, they'll probably see a lot of the material again later in the school, so they'll be ok if they are working at school (which some of them don't). The year 10 class I've got are supposed to be doing the higher tier maths GCSE, but some of them are borderline as to whether they should bump down to Foundation. If they do nothing at home while we're off, they will definitely sit Foundation tier, and we have already had it okayed to get an extra teacher in part time to split the class into higher and Foundation to be taught separately.

I don't know what other subjects will be doing, but it's possible (probable?) those kids will just get lower grades. We already offer so much intervention in year 11 in the form of after school lessons, revision days in the holidays, etc that there physically isn't time to give them any more help!! It will definitely impact the disadvantaged kids the most.

I think the "don't worry if your child isn't doing any school work" stuff only really applies to younger kids. But even then, my child who is forced to do maths and English every day is going to be in a much better position academically than X who has done nothing academic at all, not even reading or times tables. It may be that X is very happy with that, and their mental health is better, or their family have a happier time in lockdown. I have a lot of sympathy for that position, but it doesn't change the fact that they will be behind academically and will need to work harder to catch up when things go back to normal.

So frustrating this whole black and white advantantaged/disadvantaged. Our family are typical of your “middle grounders” we’re both working class born but went to university and have lived a more advantaged life but in a predominately working class area, so the comp our child is in has children from the most deprived etc right up to really quite affluent, but I’d say the biggest cohort is at the deprived end so if those children dictate what’s going to happen to the others

What approach does the school currently take. Some focus on ensuring that all the children are support to achieve a basic standard at cost to the more able/supported/hardworking. Others leave the children that struggle behind. I would assume they’ll maintain their current culture.

its tricky though isnt it as if you go with the option of assuming all work has been completed during lockdown and carry on from there you will be discriminating against the children who have not been able to do school work for reasons beyond thier control (so not the ones that couldnt be bothered) but the ones who parents died of covid19, or the ones too poor to have internet or devices to enable them too access the work or the ones locked in a room and abused.

I think there will need to be some sort of assessment to pick out the ones that will need extra help for those reasons,

its really hard. DS2 is in year 4 and he goes to a school in a very wealthy priviledged village. less 0.5% FSM. out of his class of 30 ive only seen about 6-7 interact with the online chat/videos/work and I know all the families in his class and im 100% sure that at least 25 of them have no barriers - plenty of electronics and internet access, mental ability to teach kids basics, half of them have SAHP, etc etc but i know some arent bothering (thier words) what can you do?

The school got a handle on things last week prior to that there was just revision stuff on the school website and no communication

Now the subject teacher is setting a task with a deadline and marking it and feeding back, only really 1 task per subject per week but not complaining it’s 100 times better from where they where, but is it enough for a v able y10 kid probably not, but if you know you’ve hundreds of kids who haven’t picked up a pencil in 7 weeks they’ve got bigger worries than my child

That's true brie. I said earlier that I would be expecting all pupils to be completing the work set. What I didn't mention is that all the work I'm setting is revision of stuff they have seen earlier in the year, just as practice. I also said that I wouldn't be offering extra intervention over and above the videos and work I've set now. That would be for the kids who are just not bothering, kids with genuine barriers to their learning will need to speak to school and I will happily support those kids, just the same as I have always supported the kids who have difficult home circumstances. I do need to know about it though, as currently the ones not completing the work at home are also the ones who don't complete work in my lessons, and none of them have and extenuating circumstances that they have informed school about (there may be some circumstances they just haven't told us about yet)

OP, I'm not convinced that is enough, especially for core subjects. My year 10 class are getting 4 tasks a week, as I see them 4 lessons a week normally. It's all revision, but the more revision of these topics they do now, the better prepared they will be when we go back and see the new topics. You could always encourage him to do some maths revision each day. Corbett maths has 5-a-day questions for every day, at various ability levels, so that might be a start, and there are videos and worksheets for every GCSE maths topic on there too. It he just practices the things they've covered this year, he's putting himself at an advantage (which does disadvantage those who can't do that for whatever reason, but you personally can't worry about every child in the school/country)

OP, I've focused on maths because that's what I teach, but he could equally be doing revision of the stuff they've already covered in other subjects, because obviously they all count for GCSEs. I can't help with good websites for other subjects though

Ds is in year 9, his science teacher has stated that if the work is not completed at home then on return to school that work will be set as additional homework until it is completed.

I have a feeling this is because it is GCSE stuff they are covering or at the very least the foundation of the topics. I know he is studying GCSE topics for English and Humanities and he is completing and uploading his work for all his subjects set on Google classrooms.

As a child who is studying statistics he is very aware of the curve and seeing this as an opportunity to push ahead, he attends the local academy but knows some schools have full teaching timetables during this time. He is worried that all this work will have gone to waste on return if they cater for those who haven't completed the work.

He is concerned for the mixed ability classes he is in that they will go over the lessons provided in lockdown rather than just re-capping.

worldsworststepfordwife I'm in almost exactly the same set up - working class kids who got to uni now in working class area - possibly few less affluent pupils as school not great as many try for better side of city to avoid.

We're getting more and more busy work - same stuff being set for my Y8 and Y10 - I wonder if it's because engagment is too low across the year groups.

Some subject even in Y10 have set nothing still - others like maths are setting daily and weekly work mix of on-line apps and worksheets.

They head sent an e-mail out with a really low expection even for Y10 for hours of school work expected each week- I think it was 6 or 7 hours across the entire week.

Our children were already using many on-line systems but I worry it's not enough especially for the subjects that have still set nothing even for my Y10.

Wouldn't surpise me if many are doing nothing - so I suspect it may well be really fast paced next year for DD1 which may not suit her - and she should have sat many exams this year (wales) so she''ll either have many more to sit next year or more riding on ones she'd have sat anyway.

Snap mine should have done early entry GCSE English and because of the non existent communication they presumed they would have the same teacher assessed grade as the y11 which suited my child as they always try hard, to say they were mightily pissed off is an understatement when weeks later the Head finally emailed to say they’ll have to do it next year, they haven’t even begun the curriculum for the other English GCSE at all!!

Our secondary which is a Harris Academy has one teacher sending emails which say she will be compiling a list of pupils who have and have not completed tasks. I wonder what for- surely there will be children who will get no help and direction- I’m hoping this is so that this teacher can help those kids when they go back, not hand out punishments. I suspect in cases where large areas of school fall behind it will be best to re set the groups and bring on the kids who are now behind. What I have a concern about is that they are also looking for shed loads of staff. So I’m thinking that’s not great when you return to school after a long break and you don’t know the teachers and vice versa.

Our head wrote to us today and said that first kids back will be y10 and y12 who have been unable to do no online learning as that's the group that the school have been most concerned about. These kids will get actual targeted help.
The other Y10 and y12 are getting some learning but it will be mainly online.
The next group is the children in other years who haven't accessed online learning but he's not put a date on that.

Mmm I better set my dd expectations, god itll feel like getting penalised for giving a shit as there’s loads of kids she knows who are doing nothing because they’re choosing to do nothing, not because they haven’t got laptop access

I’m just trying to be more Zen about it all that and accepting I’m going to have to find money for a shit load of tutoring while there’s still a chance they’ll make them sit GCSEs

As a teacher in a school with a very mixed catchment it is tricky! We’re setting enough work so that children who are willing and able to work for five hours a day are sufficiently challenged but those who can’t don’t feel like they are “behind”. Many of our older students are looking after younger siblings during the day while parents work and therefore don’t start school work until 5pm. It’s worth bearing in mind that the government has given no guidance at all about remote learning. Something only appeared on the website last week and it’s just really a compilation of what different schools are doing with the conclusion that the best thing to do varies according to catchment.

Leadership teams will currently be looking at their overall curriculum models eg might the new Year 7 need a bit more English and Maths? Might it be that some of the new Year 10 start with 3 rather than 4 options? Might some of the new Year 11s need to drop an option or can we extend registration time to include catch up time etc?

Teachers themselves will be replanning for students’ return by distinguishing between the knowledge covered during remote learning and the skills gained. So, a lesson upon students’ return may start with a quick recap of the knowledge done while at home but then those who’ve done less work will consolidate their knowledge whereas those who have done it will be set more challenging work that both helps secure it (with a teacher there to correct misconceptions) but also do more of the higher order thinking tasks that their teachers shied away from during remote learning as it is more difficult to do during either independent or live online teaching.

It sounds like a contradiction but while schools will make sure students who haven’t done the work aren’t at a DISadvantage when they return, it’s only natural that those who have really worked hard on it will find the return easier both in terms of routines and readiness to learn. Think of it like homework: no teacher would set a topic as homework, never go over it again then if it comes up in the exam say to those who didn’t do that homework “too bad, you should have done their homework” On the other hand, of course students who do their homework regularly do better in their exams; it’s more than just correlation too!