Has the negative stuff started around you yet?

[pfrench]

The whole 'teachers being paid in full for being at home while we do their work for them and our own work from home' stuff?

I can feel it coming on...

It's already begun p! have you not seen the many threads...?

The threads are everywhere.

Teachers everywhere are doing nothing whatsoever but simultaneously setting far too much work for children and badgering the parents with far too many phone calls home.

Teachers are truly magical beings.

Yes, I saw one thread in coronavirus - I had to absent myself as soon as someone started using capital letters!

It's amazing, we can literally do no right - even in a global crisis situation, people still moan about us.

Wasn't that thread about how some parents are asking for compensation for having to teach their own children at home?

I think generally, people are frustrated and bored ,so.koaning about many many things. They are working from home and finding it difficult and want us to occupy their children. There isn't really any slack being offered to us! I have noticed quite a few negative posts about GP receptionists, supermarket workers, police , the general public too. The vitriol about Meghan M seems to have died down though!

I've seen a fair few threads on hear complaining -teachers aren't doing enough/shouldn't be getting paid/shouldn't get their holidays/too much work/not enough work etc.

I am pleased to say that in RL, I haven't had any of that.

I am setting work for our Y10s (core subject so full year) and keeping in touch/live lessons etc. For my Y12 class. The parents have all been absolutely lovely. Really appreciative of the efforts we are making in such uncertain times and they appreciate that it's hard for everyone. So, I like to think that there are a lot who do appreciate us.

There have been loads of threads already-it’s quite depressing.

The latest seems to be that the summer holidays should be scrapped this year and teachers/school staff should just work those 6 weeks for no money and ‘suck it up’.

Teachers get a pretty good pay for an unenviably hard job, in normal times.
Yes, they are planning work for children.
Yes some are in schools providing daycare for frontline workers (yes it is daycare largely, cooking, dance. art, etc and not huge numbers either i.e. about 25, less than a single class group, in my local secondary.)

But the provision for children a home seems to be very patchy - some schools do video lessons, some have a daily timetable. Ours is providing work but it is not monitored or marked in any way. If the schools are closed, as looks likely, until September there needs to be more standardisation of provision.

The last week in school was one of the most stressful of my life, not just since teaching. Children melting down all over the place, adults melting down all over the place, trying to teach/mark as normal, half the class not being there (and the ones there being 'those' ones), trying to prepare home work for what we thought was about to happen, staying until 5 every night to listen to the press conference, trying to write interim reports because parents' evenings were cancelled, lots of my class had families trying to go 'home' too (lots of overseas kids), making goodbye cards, not knowing whether we were basically working in virus soup, waiting for DfE guidance that never came.. child made a disclosure on the Thursday too (aagh - timing).

I desperately want to get back to work.

By which I mean 'school'.

Still 'working' on stuff that feels entirely meaningless without guidance. Some of the stuff I'm doing now might not be looked at until April 2022. I mean really...

half the class not being there (and the ones there being 'those' ones)

Can I ask what you mean by 'those' ones?

Oh ,for goodness sake, this is a staff room post. We know what she means!

Looks like you inadvertently started a new pile on thread OP

some schools do video lessons, some have a daily timetable. Ours is providing work but it is not monitored or marked in any way.

Perfect example. I’m setting a reasonable amount of work each day. Students get comments when they email it to me. However some teachers have their own children at home. Some will be sick. Some will have poor internet access or a lack of equipment. And quite a few schools are taking the sensible approach that video lessons or sessions like zoom are very open to abuse and safeguarding issues. You only have to open a ‘hilarious’ zoom teaching post on somewhere like buzzfeed to see bullying tik toks, masses of issues and huge safeguarding problems accidental naked people 🤢🤢🤢

And frankly, a metric fuck ton of parents don’t seem to be bothering to ensure that their darling child is doing any work at all. I teach in a ‘naice’ area. It’s all the vulnerable children doing the work.

You have my sympathy OP. As does the admin team at my children's school, who are ringing every student, every day. My actual children's teachers? Not so much. They 'set' worksheets from twinkle, which I am currently also paying for myself, to have enough worksheets to do to fill more than 30 minutes per day. No work is marked, and none will be. The head is clear on this. There are 14 permanent teaching staff on a rota to provide childcare to 25 children across the school. SOME teachers are having a very hard time at the moment - it sounds like you are. I doubt all teachers are though.

I guess the inconsistency is an issue. Schools are offering a varied 'teaching experience' it depends on software available, prior training, accessibility to resources. In our school we had to set project based work for the 2 weeks up to Easter. So set a project and a few links to help and leave them to it. I've had a handful e mailed back to me as many families haven't been able to do this.

My own DC school are following the timetable. So my DD, year 9, has today had. An exam question for English, a poster for the window for Arts, video herself doing blues scales for Music, get some exercise for PE and some tasks on Mathswatch. I get her to do some quiet reading and jos in the home. Fine.
I guess it must be much harder for Primary Kids/parents, particularly under 8s.

We're all offering different things, in our own ways with no national guidance or standards. We also have various tasks creating new resources and doing online CPD.

What about those furloughed employees getting paid for doing literally nothing.

Teachers though, they’re the worst. If I can’t see them working, they must be doing nothing.

But we don't have standardised teaching approaches in normal circumstances.

there needs to be more standardisation of provision.

We await leadership from the DfE. We will be waiting an awfully long time.

Can I ask what you mean by 'those' ones?

Well, it's open to interpretation isn't it. You go for it!

The one I found most challenging that week was the super high achieving one who was also extremely anxious (not usual), struggling with the fact that her friends were off and kept saying 'what do I do now?' every 30 seconds.

We're not setting anything yet other than the stuff that we did on paper (and emailed/put on the website/posted for some children, particularly those with IEPs) in the last week.

I'm trying to get myself sorted for after Easter - a maths task a day (trying to teach something via WhiteRose), a SPaG and writing task a day (hard - will have to do lots of individual work to account for individual need), something in response to a video of me reading a class book, and alternate science/geography/history activity based on me recording my laptop screen while I talk through the Smart notebooks that I would normally use in class (adapted, obv).

I'm not going to respond to any work. It's not fair - at least half the class won't do any of it at all.

My DS’s school provided enough written work to take them until the school holidays. It was obvious a lot of work had gone in to producing it and that will have been done on top of normal teaching, as we were given it on the last day school was open. We’ve been getting regular emails too.

I’d just like to say thanks to all the teachers who’ve put that effort in for our kids and are now in school looking after the children of key workers. Hard job and, after this brief experience of homeschooling, I’m very glad you’re doing it for us.

I spent a big chunk of the last Thursday in school doing through BBC Bitesize with my class. I figured that was the one thing they'd be able to navigate themselves quite easily, that would offer the most opportunities to do something projecty.

I had kids learning Mandarin, someone was all excited about the Anglo-Saxons, someone else just did maths games the whole time. We sent them away with an exercise book and a pencil, alongside a 'working at home' pack which was individualised where we needed to. I asked them to do the work pack and to do a project if they could. I'm not going to mark any of it.

The school Facebook page has a photo of the kid who literally spends his days ripping displays from walls and screaming, sitting happily doing maths. There's a message in that for us!!

The rest of them seem to be doing art projects.

I'm teaching my own child the phonics she got up to, the maths that was coming up next... and she's getting a load of screen time on Purple Mash. Ah well...

Oh we only have to go in a week a month at the moment, depending on number of kids in school. I'm in over the holidays.

I'm literally putting in full days at the laptop setting, marking and interacting with kids using Teams. Our parents and students are complaining they're getting too much to do and can we slacken off! Surely people are indulging on teacher bashing at a time like this??

I work in the same secondary that my children go to so I can see it from both sides. I still think the teachers are doing a fabulous job.

My yr9 child has really struggled and when I contacted his teachers every single one emailed me back within and hour (most were even quicker) to reassure me and him .
My yr11 is completely lost and has no idea what the hell to do with himself. He has been set work but because he has no exams he sees little point in completing any work, I am encouraging him to do it anyway.

I know how disappointed his teachers are that these students won't get the summer that they deserve.

In the same day I saw the same woman post on Facebook to one friend that her children needed down time and the school had it ALL wrong and how her children needed to look after their mental health and relax more and then post to someone else that her children were bored and didn't have enough schoolwork to keep them occupied.

People that moaned before will moan even more now.

On the whole thankfully people are being supportive.