How the hell do I motivate dd to do school set work in lockdown ?

[2020meh]

Let me start by saying that dd is bright, very bright. In the top 5% of the year for most subjects. Before lockdown she was working well, no missed homework and excellent grades.

Whilst chatting online with a couple of other parents back in April, the general consensus of opinion was that once you strip out registration time, PE, one or 2 lessons that don't form part of the curriculum plus the breaks/lunch time and making their way from class room to class room during the day, each school day probably only boiled down to about 3-4 hours learning. I was therefore ok with her working 9-1 with a snack/drink break at 11ish, having lunch then gaming online with her friends in the afternoons (her friends are roughly 50/50 boys/girls).

It's recently become apparent that dd's school work has dwindled to just doing the work that has to be submitted online. Because she has to be on the internet to access the work and research subject content, she's been getting away with a lot of random surfing etc.

The school were rated excellent by Ofsted time and time again (I can't help thinking the next report won't be so glowing as many of the parents have commented that standards have been dumbed down since the old headteacher retired) but they require so little work to be submitted for marking and have provided absolutely no interactive lessons via teams/Zoom or whatever that the motivation of my recently turned 13 year old dd has dwindled so much that it's a real battle daily to get her to do more than an hour or so. I'm here at home but have to work in a separate room for confidentiality reasons and I'm expected to achieve a full working day, having to be available by 'phone from 9 to 5 each day. I risk the wrath of my manager by popping downstairs to check up on her as much as I can and I suspect the manager is calling us all more often than necessary to make sure we are working. There's only so many times I can expect her to believe I was in the loo. If I wasn't here dd would be doing zilch by now as we've been contacted by her teachers chasing up submission of pieces of work for even core subjects.

There's now only 2 weeks of term left and she's so far behind with the work set in so many subjects that I'm really cross with the school for not insisting that work be submitted if possible. Not all kids can, I realise that, but there seems to have been a race to the bottom in as much as if one or two can't access a means of submitting work then none should have to bother.

I'm also cross that some schools can manage lots of interactive online learning but dd's school teachers all parrot "safeguarding" as an explanation for why they haven't achieved it with only 2 weeks left of term.

I'm apparently not allowed to access dd's school e-mail account to see what is set each day and it's like pulling teeth getting dd to tell me honestly exactly what she's expected to be doing that day or week.

I think yr7 and 8 and to an extent yr9 even in the best schools have suffered somewhat especially in more recent weeks because staff are having to spend longer with yr10. Many yr10 classes have been split into two or three for live lessons so the teacher needs to teach the same lesson three times.

It is also hard to introduce sanctions so if the school insisted that all work was submitted asap how would they enforce it if your dd did not? Lockdown has been hard on many children all you can focus on is your own dc and hope that you can catch her up.

What happened to all the teaching time freed up by the fairly early announcement that Y11 & Y13 GCSE's and A Levels were cancelled ?

At dd's school P.E. staff and T.A.s have apparently been covering care of vulnerable/key worker children each day so the main subject teachers haven't had to do that.

Geography work set is the same for all of the year group, there's nothing interactive. So one lesson worksheet covers all 240 (approx ) kids in the year although there are 2 different geography teachers covering the year group, (ditto history) who between them would have had to teach 16 sessions ( 2 lessons a week for 8 groups of approx 30 kids). This equates to large time savings here before we even factor in absence of any marking in quite a few subjects.

The more I do the maths, the more I wonder about some teachers' actual workloads during lockdown.

Sign her in on your phone so you can monitor the work

I doubt many kids are working hard they lose motivation - yes even bright kids

They’ll catch up

Get a Koala box to set to homework mode only via the WiFi

I don’t think you can do much tbh. It’s just not motivating! Have you tried asking her form teacher or year tutor to nag? Ours are all doing the bare minimum too. Lots of teachers providing nothing except ‘do email me’. Perhaps you could say she has to show you she’s done useful work before gaming starts? Let her figure out the evidence. She could watch relevant YouTube videos if the school work is that minimal!

My child is Y9 and does online learning 9.30am for a couple of hours, mainly English, Maths & Science. I'm furloughed but not looking over his shoulder, I trust him, some work he hasn't wanted to do like videoing himself and submitting it, we tried that together, he didn't feel confident enough, I emailed the teacher to explain, it was all fine. He has two weeks left of school, he does need extra English so he reads to me every day and we'll continue that through most of the hols, but honestly I'm not worried, I'd rather have a happy child than me forcing him to do school work. I hated school and couldn't wait to leave, I don't want that for him. Currently he's looking forward to going back in September and I'm happy with that.

You're annoyed at a lot of people but interestingly not your dd. If the work is as valueless as you say, why do you care if she completes it? If she hasn't done it, let her face the music. And if she isnt going to do schoolwork I'd have her up off the computer and managing the house and garden. That way she'll at least be doing something useful.

By secondary school age it has to come from them. If she wants your help to get sorted and stay on track, by all means. But if she cant be arsed then there's nothing you can do about it.

I find your post a bit contradictory - saying that most subjects/lessons aren't setting work but also that you've got people on the phone complaining about undone assignments - how can both those things be true?

I do sympathise but speaking as a teacher who's been teaching on Teams, it would be easy enough for her to slack off there too - most schools don't let/require students to have the cameras on so for all you know they're not actually working and there's always 'dodgy wifi' to blame for not participating.

Anyway, you could consider purchasing a few workbooks or website subscriptions for the subjects you feel she may be behind in and set her some.kind of reward for completing specific amounts of work.

Also contact the school and say that if they want parents to monitor work, they need to use something like Show My Homework.

What platforms do your dd's school use?

I can log onto my dc's Show My Homework, Hegarty maths and Seneco learning to see exactly what she's got. I also get emails saying that she has/hasn't done all the tasks due the following day or when there are new comments.

It is very, very hard for young people to stay motivated for this long. As your dd is very bright and capable, she'll most likely be fine when school starts again.

@Porcupineinwaiting .

Naturally I'm annoyed with dd although this has been expressed as being disappointed and her allowance reduced for lack of effort but as parents we can honestly understand why the motivation is fading if the majority of what her teachers are providing is a worksheet that she logs in to access, print, complete and then stick in her subject exercise book or folder. very little submitted for marking, no teams/zoom lesson to interact or check how much is being learn't from the worksheets. We've done gardening and baking and decorating but to be fair stuff round the house/garden takes some input from me at times to set her off on a task/assist with tricky bits/answer questions when she's not sure how to proceed at times and as mentioned I'm under scrutiny from work to ensure I am working diligently 9-5.

I would dispute that all 13 year olds can be left "for it to come from them". Schools hope for this in the majority but in my experience they never blindly place faith in it happening across the board (which is what they are doing at present) because results would drop substantially if they did.

@Phineyj I've re-read my post and I can't see anywhere that I said that most subjects aren't setting work (so no contradicting myself as far as I can see). They're all setting endless worksheets, but most of them are not asking for the work done therefrom to be submitted so not checking that its being done in most subjects. No interactive Teams/Zoom etc to assess class knowledge. I've had e-mails from core subject teachers and one non-core subject about missing work.

I could buy workbooks but I'm not sure how that's any different to a bunch of worksheets issued by school which when put together form a workbook of sorts. It's all just sitting, teaching yourself from pieces of paper (pages of a book or worksheets) I could pay for website subscriptions (not cheap and really grates that I effectively have to hire in replacement teaching, hell I could apparently hire online tutors who, may actually be teachers somewhere in the UK with spare time on their hands because they're not getting work done in for marking and they're putting one worksheet on line for 240 students which would ordinarily have taken 16 lesson slots to cover that week.

At the moment dd has such low motivation, not bothered about the cut in allowance and cutting her gaming time. We need to allow some online with friends time for mental health.

@averysuitablegirl There's sharepoint but from what I can see this is just where the teachers upload the worksheets. Any communication from school is all about mental health/well being rather than school work and teaching time interactions.

I asked to have access to her school e-mail account/be copied in on all schoolwork e-mails sent but "safeguarding" issues with this too apparently so that's a no. Any mention of online interaction is met with the rebuff of "can't be done due to massive safeguarding concerns". So many other schools are managing it. DD's cousin (elsewhere in the country) has 3 hours a day of online lessons ! I could understand if it took a few weeks to sort out and organise IT wise but we're now 14 weeks into lockdown !

I'm working F/T from home and working harder than pre-lockdown as some things would be easier in the workplace office. It does seem that dd's year group teachers are having a much easier time bunging a sourced worksheet online for the whole year group instead of teaching them in classes of 30 twice a week. It's uninspiring and hence the kids are uninspired/demotivated after 3 months of it.

I think with dd's school though it stems from the head. All sorts of lowering of standards since the changeover 2 years ago and I worry that although dd is bright and should get her motivation back if the teachers get back to actually teaching, be that online or in a class room, there'll be a higher proportion of the disengaged/disaffected than before thus making the learning environment more challenging for the rest. Aren't teachers worried about this sort of thing ?

Well, you would have thought so but I think the extra workload in September will be the basis for the next pay claim.

Am I convinced all teachers worry about their pupils? No. I think a minority worry about themselves more. If they truly were concerned about pupil progress, of course more would be offered. There’s no pastoral care taking up time right now. And virtually no marking.

I’m sure you’re aware many private schools have done more. I don’t believe for one minute that all DC will catch up. There will be enormous learning gaps for some. I think you do need to chat to DD about going back to school and trying to look at the syllabus and what she should have covered in the time remaining. Find on line lessons if need be and suitable books.

To end on a more positive note. Both my DDs did an exchange visit to another county for a term in y9. They took the old format GCSEs in y11. They did a bit of uk school work but went to school lessons in the subjects taught at the foreign school. I don’t think for one minute that term away affected their gcse results. It isn’t the same as lockdown. I do understand that and lockdown is longer, in terms of no school work. But sometimes a change is ok but getting back into the swing of it can be unsettling. DDs we’re away from school for 4 1/2 months with Christmas and Easter holidays.

It sounds like you’re expecting the teachers to check every single piece of work - this would be unrealistic - school marking policies normally specify one piece of work marked every 2-3 weeks per subject.

You asked about find freed up by Y11 and Y13 - actually there was a massive workload there created by the requirements for teacher assessed grades. Absolute nightmare.

It's incredibly frustrating when you know your kid is slacking off and getting away with it but honestly don't assume that teachers are able to teach effectively online, it's a skill a lot of them won't have, and it is quite easy for kids to switch off.

My nephew is your DDs age and is similarly lazy.

Could you arrange for DD to do 30 min "sprints " where she works in same room as you, with big headphones to cater for confidentiality issues, perhaps even facing away from you? It's a bit sad for her to be alone all day. Your manager needs to be a bit more reasonable. Or tell manager you can only work afternoons Mon to Weds, and get 3 good school days in per week.

And/or why not swap her weekends? Tell her that as she is finding it hard to work alone, she can have Thursday/Friday off but now has school 9 til 1pm Sat/Sun?

Getting angry at the school simply won't help. If they were going to do more, they'd have done it by now. You're on your own, sadly.

My DD has also been recently slacking off more (unlike you, I can access her email, work and online folders). We’ve had a couple of discussions and she now does me a check list first thing that I check off after she’s finished. They only have 2 weeks left of school though so I wouldn’t panic about work that nots been done, not that I think you should say that to DD!

I have had same with DD who is year 7. Up until May Half Term she was working long hours every day and getting stressed about the amount of work to do.

She then started going in to school 2 days a week and would only do work on those days.
Now she barely does any work. She's really struggling with everything and barely comes out of her room & won't eat much.

DD is top set and usually works hard. So she can definitely access the work & I would say the work set is good.

I think it's such an unusual situation and sometimes mental health needs to take priority. It's not DD fault nor is it the teachers. It's just a horrible unprecedented situation.

Fingers crossed we'll all be back in September.

I suggested workbooks and websites because a) some of them are well designed and engaging and b) good ones have answers so DD can check her own work. I had understood your complaint to be that work is boring and not being checked.

I do understand how frustrated you feel. My 7 year old has become very demotivated despite online lessons, a lovely teacher etc. And there's certainly no chance of her getting on with work by herself!

Have you phoned school? I’ve phoned and visited reluctant learners

Even though you don’t have access to her work, you can still look through it together at the beginning of the day and discuss what needs doing that day.

I've a year 10 that has had very little interactive online learning either. Two teachers out of nine, started three weeks ago. God knows what the younger years age getting.

're accessing your DD's email. Ask her to login physically in front of you and show you.

're time freed up by cancelling y11 and 13 exams. Seriously? The teachers had to go through 2 year's worth of work and calculate not only what grade to assess the work at but rank each child within that grade. Usually the majority of time post Easter hols would be study leave so if anything more work was put on the teachers than normal.

Stop the baking etc. If you have work then stop that stuff and any time can then be used to check she has done her work.

It sounds like you just don't like the new head and are using the situation to slag her off.

You are contradicting yourself in saying there is not enough work being set that needs to be marked and then saying your child is being chased for work that needs to be marked.

Plus. Your manager sounds like a wanker

I don’t understand what you mean about “accessing her email”. My DD is constantly logged in on her laptop so I could easily check what she’s got on google classroom and what emails she received. I do sit with her and go through emails and help her with learning as she has learning disability so needs my help. But

Sorry pressed the wrong button
I myself constantly logged in on my laptop so my DD could see my emails ( and she does sometimes) so it’s just the habit at this house. I often check deadlines of DD’s work on google classroom in the evening to plan my help for the next day. Also as she needs me to sit with her we work on Saturday and Sunday often instead of weekdays.