Thinking of moving DD from her school at end of year 7 due to poor handling of closure period - anyone else in the same boat

[fancymcfancypants]

That's it really. We've been really, really disappointed with provision from the school during the closure:

• nothing whatsoever in the way of 'live' teaching
• not a single call from the school, pastoral or otherwise, until 2 weeks ago when a teacher that DD had never spoken to before called to check in on her (as if she'd be comfortable sharing any concerns with someone she doesn't know from adam)
• virtually no effort at all put into lesson planning (sample maths lesson 'here are the answers to Tuesday's worksheet, go over anything you got wrong')
• in instances where children have fallen behind by a long way e.g. one of DD's friends who didn't submit work for two weeks, no contact from the school at all

Complained to HOY (as have many other parents) and was told they were going to try and do more live teaching but some of the teachers 'aren't comfortable' online.

She likes the school generally. It's viewed very highly in the part of London that we're in, very sought-after etc and before Covid we were fairly happy with it. But what she's getting just isn't anywhere close to proper schooling and the thought of it all dragging on into next year is really dispiriting.

They are now saying they aren't sure KS3 will be back at school in September and I'm thinking of doing whatever it takes to somewhere else for her. We recently moved and are now in the catchment for a local academy that seems (according to other parents) to be handling this stuff better so was wondering about going to ask them to put her on a waiting list for an occasional place (which I'm told do come up). Alternatively, we can afford to pay private school fees but wanted DC to go to state schools. But now I feel we'd be letting DD down if we don't explore other options that are available to us.

I suppose I'm just putting this out there to see if anyone else has been massively disappointed with how their DC's school have handled the past few months and is also considering moving.

We are getting a lot of lessons presented as a powerpoint presentation with the teacher talking through them. DD has found these better than the few live lessons she's had as she can go through at her own pace, and also has the option to look at other resources if she wants to.
There's also excellent material on GCSE pod and similar.

(Her few live lessons have had poor attendance, for the reasons as suggested on this thread. English Lit they've had quite a few live lessons as the teacher thought it important to read the text aloud. They've not yet got into double figures attendance (class of 30))

The dc have just been through the most disruptive experience of a lifetime, they might well be fine now, but going back will provoke a lot of anxiety and stress. The best we can do as parents is minimise the change and disruption. I guess you could go for a waiting list place to keep in the back pocket as a just in case option if she is not getting on well.

'Education' doesn't have to be provided for just by teachers, I would be expecting some independent learning too. What is your DD interested in? What can she research, read, learn to do...this has been an amazing opportunity for independent creative learning, for practising new skills, for developing resilience and perseverance.

I understand the issues with access being countered here, but the scenarios I’m specifically mentioning, are for schools in an affluent area with very tiny FSM percentages. One local school for example, had 90% interest, yet barely 30% uptake, and that was even variable over the 3 sessions that were eventually offered.
I do agree, live lessons are not the holy grail of lockdown learning; for an independent learner like our daughter, she doesn’t really need any live input to do what is required from a lesson, and they have certainly not been the principle focus of her school‘s delivery. But they do have an added element of cohesion and direction, and a real-time sense of expectation from the children, which some kids do benefit from I’m sure.

FSM or not, most people don't have enough computers to manage a whole household of kids being on them to make live lessons accessible. People who have always relied on benefits have in some sense been the least effected by this crisis. Their income hasn't changed. The people who are on the borderline, the kids who's parents are freelancers, those who have started businesses in the last year, have been massively effected financially and have been relying on food banks. IMO there has been way too much emphasis on FSM kids. Yes they're disadvantaged but there's been much more help available to them than many others who aren't eligible by a tiny amount.
So all in all, the fact that your school has a small FSM percentage doesn't really make a difference.

@Malmontar - yes that makes sense. Having said that, I do know people who are low income / FSM, yet their kids have iPads etc that they have been glued to since the age of 2. I know this certainly isn’t the case for all...but it’s interesting how these devices are readily available for some..when the requirement is purely recreational!

In some ways though, live learning and checking that DC have actually learnt something is the hallmark of a good lesson. Most people wouldn’t think work sheets did this. It’s like every other life scenario - there needs to be variety and great teaching offers this. Just setting work sheets and never contacting DC doesn’t ensure all have learnt and many DC are not self starters. They need lessons, guidance and advice.

@Mumto2two yup, for sure. I think the kids who didn't do any work at all during this term were the kids who didn't do much work at school anyway.
Closer to the holidays, I think students and their parents have just burnt out. A lot of schools who are offering live lessons have got them sorted towards the end of term, so I'm not surprised they're not really up taking them up. Everyone is exhausted by this point of summer term in a normal school year, let alone this one.

I think the kids who didn't do any work at all during this term were the kids who didn't do much work at school anyway.

That’s definitely not true.

I obviously don't mean everyone @noblegiraffe. But you can't say that's definitely not true.

No but there seems to be an ‘Ah those who aren’t turning up to live lessons wouldn’t have listened in school anyway so whatevs’

Incidentally, it is not easy to check that a DC has learned what was meant to be learned in a live lesson with a class of 30.

My kids are having live taekwondo lessons, and individual music lessons. They’re great. Teaching maths to a class through a live lesson is not like that at all.

I would say that the children not doing their lessons are the ones that usually work really hard, but have been knocked for six by lockdown, become withdrawn away from their friends, have let their natural perfectionist tendencies run amok and it's now preventing them from working because they're too scared of getting it wrong when studying by themselves.
Maybe that's just my school? We don't have many pupils that normally don't work! (I realise this is not the case universally).

I think a lot of the excuses for not providing children with teaching are weak. My DDs school:

• set work in each subject the moment lockdown started
• set up MS Teams for each form and subject so teachers could interact with children
• set interesting, optional projects and challenges around the curriculum using art, sport, music etc.
• directed children and parents to interesting content, external competitions, interactive learning websites for independent learning, but did so in a thoughtful way that interested the kids
• encouraged children to keep in touch with their classmates
• showcases work / achievements of children during lockdown
• called parents to ensure children were happy, and also spoke to the kids regularly
• the teachers made funny videos to promote things like online sports day
• had live lessons with interactive content

Disclaimer: DD goes to a private school but my point is that a lot of this stuff could be done by anyone. They kept the school community going.

Delivering to the LCD is poor. Why should some kids suffer because others won't/can't engage?

‘Delivering to the LCD is poor. Why should some kids suffer because others won't/can't engage?’ - @DorisLessingsCat

My thoughts exactly - i’m amazed at some of the excuses for lack of engagement here, and just cannot understand why there can be 100% engagement in private schools, yet something so acceptingly low as 10% in state? It’s not all down to resources, and making excuses based on ‘fear of getting things wrong’ etc..just don’t make sense.
Our school programme is exactly like yours, and every set and ability range are engaged and supported. They have even managed to set end of term exams and there have been no issues with children withdrawing into their shells, because there is plenty of teacher & parental support reaching out. Utopian perhaps, and of course ours comes at a price, but the failings elsewhere cannot all be put down to money.

The LCD is an issue and will widen the gap between state and private.

There are some good solutions here from teachers (video etc but not live) but many schools haven’t done this even.

Tg for other provision for us, we use Oak Academy pretty much solely. It also helps as we can choose another year and work with that. We’d be in a pretty poor position without it.

I have been having the same feelings as you, OP. Our secondary school has not responded particularly well and it has made me question them. For me. It hasn't been about the total lack of live lessons - I completely acknowledge the difficulties. It's been the extremely poor quality of materials in some subjects (and I do mean very poor indeed) and the complete lack of any kind of individual welfare checks whatsoever. I'd say my expectations are quite low and yet they have still failed to meet them.

Actually please don't believe that there is 100% participation at independent schools either.

There has been 100% participation at me DCs independent schools. It is very easy to monitor attendance if 99% of the students turn up and the 1% are quickly called to order. Not so easy the other way round, in fact probably impossible.

My DC's schools have both run a full online timetable. I have lots of friends with DCs at the local outstanding state schools and they have also run pretty full timetables. But this is leafy Surrey filled with aspirational parents and I think it has also helped that a lot of the local state schools use Ipads as part of their learning so everyone has access to the lessons. So OP if a local academy is using ipads as part of normal school I would be tempted to look at that because it does seem to have offered a huge advantage during this crisis and who knows when it will end.

The other issue that has become apparent with our local grammar, is the sheer volume of kids who actually rely on ongoing tutor support. Some of this has continued on-line via zoom etc..but I know a couple of parents whose children have been left up the proverbial creek without a paddle, as the demand for tutors had rocketed, and they couldn’t fit them in. Sadly a reflection of the ‘tutoring to test‘ culture that prevails around here, but of course that’s another story.

The reason for high participation rates in fee-paying schools is down to parents. If you're paying thousands upon thousands of pounds for an education then you're going to ensure your children are receiving it.
It's as simple as that. Look at all the threads on here over lockdown "oh, my child doesn't want to do the work", "my child feels disengaged from learning", "it's too stressful doing home education" etc. I work in education, so unsurprisingly I take a hard line on attendance and participation. My children have no choice- they've been set work, they do it. They have a lesson, they attend it. Both DH and I have worked ridiculously long hours the past four months- we need them occupied while we're working, and their schools have provided ample resources and engaging materials for them to study (one is in fee-paying, but one is at a state-maintained academy). To be fair to my children, they are highly motivated and engaged in their learning under normal conditions anyway, they're also good at asking for help or support when they need it, so tend not to let things get so bad they then can't recover from it. But they have been brought up to value education highly, and have been brainwashed encouraged to always make the best of their opportunities.

Many parents do not place any value on the education their children receive. This pandemic has shown that for many school is merely childcare, teachers are unworthy of respect, rules don't apply to their children.

There are far fewer parents in the fee-paying system that don't value education. Of course there are some, but a much smaller proportion than in the state-maintained sector.

I'm actually surprised so many children in the private sector are managing 100% attendance at live lessons. In our house we have 2 DC and DH and I are both working from home. There is no way that our (best available) broadband could cope with 4 of us on video calls at the same time. And judging by the number of colleagues dropping constantly out of work meetings, many others have similar issues.

I think posters are making stuff up. Extrapolating from their own limited experience.

Survey data shows there are plenty of private schools not running a full timetable of live lessons and while a minority of state secondaries are offering some live lessons, it’s often not a full timetable.

Even dh a teacher and dd (a student at his school) did not manage 100% attendance.

It’s unfair to accuse people of ‘making things up’, there are many parents reporting similar experiences, and I know parents & teachers from a wide range of independent schools, all delivering similarly good packages. Our prep has been taking record number enquiries from state school parents looking to move, all terribly unhappy with the state school provisions they have had. It’s not some myth concocted on mumsnet?
I think the issue is assuming that when we talk about live-lessons, it’s not that they are sitting on zoom for hours on end..there might be one or two scheduled into each day, amongst a scheduled timetable of other set lessons too. Resources and work is uploaded each day according to a set-timetable, and work has to be returned by a certain time. Each subject aiming to have a least one live lesson a week, maths & English being given more focus, form time catch ups and teaching support online for those who needed more support. It’s having a set schedule that helps most, and the expectation of delivery on time. That’s the key I feel. And that’s where most independent schools are having better outcomes, because the expectations are higher. We have 4 people using teams etc throughout the day at different times, sometimes coinciding..and so far it’s not been a problem at all, not for us, or any of the other 350 families in the school!

It’s unfair to accuse people of ‘making things up’

Posters going on about how there’s 100% attendance at their school’s live lessons. Like they’d been monitoring!

I think the issue is assuming that when we talk about live-lessons, it’s not that they are sitting on zoom for hours on end..there might be one or two scheduled into each day, amongst a scheduled timetable of other set lessons too.

A ‘full timetable of online lessons’ isn’t a full timetable of live online lessons then. It’s pretty misleading thought isn’t it when mixed in with a discussion about live lessons. That is what people will assume.

So in fact these posters going on about a full timetable of online lessons could in fact be referring to ‘work is set remotely according to the timetable’. And other parents are getting upset at not being offered the same, when in fact they are getting something similar just calling it something different.