Teachers - what's the best way for students to catch up after absence?

[HereComesYourMam]

DS is in Year 10 and has been off school for four days with covid. He's hardly ever had any absences before and certainly not for so long so I'm a bit clueless about how (if) he should catch up with the work he's missed.

So teachers, please could you advise on your preferred approach?

• an email from the student to check what's been missed
• they just ask you when they're back
• they ask their friends
• just leave it - no need to do any actual catching up work

Thank you 🙂

I have multiple, very polite emails a week from delightful, eager Y7 students asking me what they should catch up on. I've just spent quite a while responding to a few! Past Y7 most students either ask a friend or don't bother.

My preferred approach is for them to ask a reliable friend. They can then take a copy of friend's work, and/or go over the bit in the PowerPoint/ textbook. If there is a worksheet they didn't get, they could come and ask me for it or take a copy of their friend 's.

Yes agreed, ask a reliable friend. Then if anything is not clear, obvs fine to come and ask the teacher.

Thank you both - good to know!

I'd photocopy my book for them and suggest they chat to a friend in the class, then come and see me if they need more help

I think it's fine to email and ask if there's anything which is a priority to catch up on. It also means I can give out resources etc that they may have missed. I'm happy to send my powerpoints to students (mainly sixth form) who ask.

For four days, I wouldn't stress too much though!

I’m a secondary teacher.

For me, it depends on the individual child and the point we are at in the course. All my lessons are uploaded electronically to google classroom.

For some pupils, they ask what we covered and I signpost them to the relevant content and they complete it.

For others, they simply copy the notes.

For a few, I print paper copies of the notes and then spend time going over the work they missed - either in class or during lunch/after school.

For many, they never bother to catch up despite me giving them several opportunities to do so. And usually, when we are talking about a few days from a school year, it’s not a big deal.

It depends what it is we’ve done in class really. I wouldn’t mind an email or to be asked on their return. It may just be some reading of a text, or they can get photos of a friend’s book and copy up the notes etc. I imagine it’s different for different subjects too.

My school has Google Classrooms and everything goes on there. For science, I would happily send Y10s the relevant Cognito YouTube videos of the topics covered.

Thanks everyone, some useful suggestions here 🙂