How much work are you doing during the lockdown

[Letmegetthisrightasawoman]

I work 0.6 FTE, teaching KS3 and KS5. At my school, subject leaders are setting work for KS3 and KS4. I haven't been on the rota for last week or this week (I have volunteered to come in over Easter and have emphasised that I can come in on my non-working days too, but there just isn't a lot of demand). Essentially, all I'm doing is setting and marking work for my handful of year 12 pupils. I do have two sets of year 7 assessments to mark, but there isn't exactly a rush to get those done. I need to plan some work for our incoming sixth formers, but I can't do any planning for next year, as I have no idea what year groups, topics or even subjects I will be teaching. I am keeping a close eye on my emails, and so far I have had a grand total of three emails from students.

It just doesn't feel quite right to be considered a keyworker when, for all intents and purposes, I am having an extended holiday... How are other schools doing things? Am I the only feeling like this? I don't want to sound smug or rub it in, this seemed a safe place to ask. Sorry if I have annoyed anyone...

Very little to none

I am setting work for a year group due to having a promoted post. I am also delivering live sessions to my Y12 class. Did the first one today and it actually went well

I have curriculum stuff to write and schemes of learning/resources to do as well. Not started those yet but will do soon.

I have a 6 year old so the main issue is trying to fit work around him.

I'm on holiday at the moment. I'm doing a couple of hours a day in preparation for next term. Next term will be full on - KS4 and 5 lessons (including Y11 and Y13) via zoom or similar and work to set and mark remotely for KS3. I think it'll probably end up busier than a normal summer term, given that marking work online is way more time consuming than marking with paper and pen.

We started with each member of the dept. setting work for either the higher ability or lower ability pupils in each year group (7-13), but have been directed to plan for all of our own classes and differentiate appropriately. We are also responsible for electronically collecting this all in and giving feedback as normal.

How are you justifying setting the same work for all pupils in the same year?

This was efficient. In the first week, most of us got ahead and planned for next half term, in depth. Then we had to 'unassign' all of the work for each others' groups and start again, all worrying about 7 year groups each.

So in the last seven work days, I've barely stopped!

It's very variable. I am KS1. I am not teaching online as such but uploading work to a website. It takes a long time because the software is easy to use but that makes it very basic so formatting takes ages and it's very slow so there is a lot of waiting around. We seem to have a lot of emails between staff at the moment that needs responding to and I try to respond to the children who've completed work on Purple Mash. I respond to parent emails but I haven't had that many.

I am in school 1-2 days a week so I prepare activities for that. I also have some assessment data to catch up on. It's definitely less than a normal week, but harder to manage alongside trying to homeschool my own primary-aged children!

A lot!
Setting and checking students have done work.
Giving rewards, helping students who have a problem.
Then, everyone in my department has been given jobs to do - mine's finishing off writing KOs.
I'm heartily sick of the sight of my computer, and looking forward to a break.

I’m .4 MFL teacher + SENCO.

I set all my classes work for the week and a half before the Easter hols so have been able to keep on top of responding to student queries via email. The work before Easter was being done in their exercise books so we could finish the topics neatly so no marking (yet...!). After half term we are setting cultural capital work for all of KS3, so I’ve been feeding in to that, finding resources, tweaking them, formatting them. The marking load won’t be high, as we’re asking them to work in English and complete research/experience tasks. Then, after the May half term we are going to ask them to focus on one area of their research/experience tasks so far and extend their learning.

I’ve been doing LOADS of SENCO stuff though, all the jobs that never make it to the top of my to do list as the LEA have effectively shut SEND support down so there’s no statutory stuff to do. I’ve also been contacting the parents of students with EHCPs twice a week and doing emails every so often to all SEND parents with links to helpful information. I’ve probably spoken to a couple of other parents to each day.

I’ve had to fit all this around my 2y old, but, so far, it’s ok. I’ve no idea how I would manage to remotely teach through zoom or whatever!

I teach A Levels and I am continuing to teach and mark work full time. We have our students online on Microsoft teams continuing to work. I work in an FE college and we are taking it very seriously that students need to be online and engaging in the work for their exams next year (first years).
In terms of our second years we are still waiting on exactly how they will be graded.

The work is more relaxed (at home in PJs!) but still have lots of work to do.

I’m very similar to Dippy... in school once or twice a week and at home I’m uploading work to the website, which does take ages.

Apart from planning the home learning, I have written reports, marked assessments and need to finish uploading data. We have to rewrite a whole curriculum for our subjects too. Quite a few emails to respond to.

I tend to do all this once my own kids have finished their work. My eldest is Y7 and there are so many logins and emails and things coming from all sorts of places, it takes ages to make sure he’s completing what he should be.

How are you justifying setting the same work for all pupils in the same year?

I don't know how this decision was made tbh. I think SLT were assuming that the school closure wouldn't go on for more than two weeks? Some subjects have given different textbooks for different sets. They've made it very clear they're not expecting all pupils to complete the work (to the staff that is). The demographic my school serves it wouldn't be realistic to expect the work to be returned digitally. I have thought about doing zoom lessons for year 12, but I don't have childcare for my toddler and am reluctant to go out of my way (for a variety of reasons). I might consider it further down the line.

Crikey, I’m doing loads (primary): setting work via Seesaw, videoing myself showing examples, commenting on work sent to me, on rota in school, submitting and analysing data, curriculum mapping for subjects I lead (small school, have three subjects, one being English).

This is of course mainly done in the evening because of the stampeding toddler...

We are on holiday at the moment but have been teaching classes via Microsoft Teams so planning, delivering lessons and marking work as normal. After Easter, I think the school are planning on re-jigging things a little so that the stress on us and the kids of delivering/receiving all that teaching online is lessened, so I’m expecting to have to plan more research/project based lessons which don’t require quite such a full on approach. It’s been much more tiring than teaching in a classroom!

Having a mare.
Kids struggling in some cases to access work.
Fending off emails and messages by the dozen
Trying to give feedback on 175 kids work

I'm 0.8. worked my day off and Sunday. Was in school yesterday and have had to have some time out today. I'm trying to run the house, look after and teach my own kids too.

Argh. Roll on Friday!!!

I’m EYFS. Putting together the weekly plan and resources which go out on Monday morning, then marking the work that gets uploaded via our online platform. I’d say only half the class are uploading regularly, so there’s not that much to comment on. Expected to do CPD a couple of times a week, have spring data to upload too. We are on a rota to be in school - was in last week so WFH this week. I’m usually done by around lunch time.

Really long hours but with more little chances to snatch 5 or 10 minutes break to browse the internet than I’d normally get. I’m an AHT, in charge of sixth form, and am fielding a lot of emails and calls from colleagues and students each day. We’re trying to keep on top of pastoral issues and queries from teachers, students and parents. I’m also busy getting guidance documents together for students and staff and keeping in touch with the staff and departments that I line manage. On top of that I’m live teaching all of my classes on teams (15 periods a week) and uploading assemblies and enrichment activities for sixth form students.

I’m 0.5 maths. We have all been allocated one or two years groups to set work for. I am doing year 7 and 8 -all abilities and all lessons. It’s taking a long time to do well. We set our own class for homework and so far this has been MyMaths or quizzes. I hear we are meant to be getting work submitted online after Easter and I’m not looking forward to that. It seems silly to have such a demanding day. I just hope I’m going to be expected to write reports.

I’m 0.6 music in a massive secondary school. I teach vast majority of KS3 plus do one entire unit of GCSE and A level. We’ve got to upload work for all our lessons on google classroom and then are expected to be online at their lesson time to deal with queries. Most of the work I’ve set so far is online tasks which are self marked so I’m spending all my time changing passwords and checking they have accessed the correct activity. I’ve been at my desk working from 8-4 every working day, plus several hours over the weekend getting everything set up. Today I did my first zoom lessons and from after Easter I’ll be doing all my KS4 and KS5 lessons ‘live’. It’s nice not having to commute and do breakfast club and rush to do ASC pick up. I’m trying to be quite disciplined by putting my laptop away and switching off work email alerts at 4pm when I log off for the day. It’s nice to be able to have a cup of tea whenever I want and put washing on and hang it out in 5 minute bursts away from the computer, but I am certainly working properly on all my working days if that makes sense?

I’m 0.5 KS3/4 and currently on Easter holiday and fretting about various things I need to get done. We only had a week of online school before the break and no ‘live’ lessons but it’s been an enormous faff trying to get the first set of work in and marked, then chasing up the kids that have gone AWOL or misunderstood the task , fielding emails etc. It’s taking 3 to 4 times longer to sort things out than normal which is not sustainable . I need to have a proper think about what I can set the younger year groups because so much of my subject is delivered through practical and we have swapped to online tests which have similar but not identical content. I just feel a bit all over the place and need to properly get myself sorted this week so I can relax for the last week. I’ve got two teenagers at home who are actually being very compliant so far but I do feel I need to give them input over their ‘home school’ day so my work day ends up very fragmented. Anyway in the scheme of things i can’t complain, the Head is being really good, staff have rallied together and once I get into the swing of things it will settle down. I just really hope we can be back in school before the end of next term, even for a few weeks.

I'm primary. I've set maths, writing, reading and SPAG for each level and i'm fielding comments on google classroom all day. Plus marking and setting wellbeing tasks. And doing reports. And ringing to safeguard. And a transition pack. And stuff for next year because apparently I have time because i'm at home. What i'm not doing especially well at is home educating my own two kids. Or anything else!

Just to add, I'm finding all of the emails from students saying they can't access their work particularly frustrating - we spent the last two weeks of school asking students to check they could. (Of course, we have sent out lesson packs to those that can't access the internet.)
On the upside, a student sent me a selfie with them and their work... it cheered me right up!

I’m a part time primary teacher (2 days a week) and because I can’t afford child care to do a full week I’ve been taken off the rota altogether. Bit sad not to be helping with the effort but my head wants us in for week blocks or nothing.
So my workload is very small.
I just reply to the odd parent email.
I’ve lost my self employed after-school nanny job so I can’t really afford to lose £ at the moment.

Doing a bit of SOL work every day but apart from that nothing.

I think maybe asking during the holiday won't get a representative response!

I find the hardest thing is the brainwork required to adapt and alter work and the fact that some of it simply is not communicable or learnable remotely : and the stress of large numbers not doing it.

I feel less stressed workwise though because there are no behaviour issues to contend with.

I'm back 'at work' as Easter over where I am. Working from home as I have a child in the shielding category and have been taken off rota. Primary - I'm doing a fairly full day's work. First thing in the morning upload 3-4 activities for my class. Then spend the rest of the morning resourcing the next day's activities and filming the teaching videos to match. I then adapt those with paper based copies that will form part of a printed resource that school admin will put together for children without tech/internet access. They are going to be available to be collected from school as families collect FSMs the following week. By lunch time I start getting loads of uploaded responses that need to be checked and commented upon (usually 2-3 per child, not the whole class by any means, but about 14-18 of them). This carries on all afternoon while I'm also getting on with other stuff - school development plan stuff, curriculum responsibility things set by the Head, answering questions and messages from parents and currently report writing. Oh, and trying to 'homeschool' two teenagers - well, bug them about online assignments they've been set. It's not much different to being in school in terms of workload.