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...

We have a lot of children whose parents have no home internet access, so every child was sent home with a work pack intended to last two weeks. Teachers are not teaching 'online' because so many kids wouldn't be able to access it. They are however, e-mailing those parents who have an e-mail address, with extra ideas for activities. The school is tweeting regularly, with new ideas as well as pictures that parents are sending us of their children working, creating etc. We have all been given tasks to do at home, so that workpacks can be put together for after Easter. They will be e-mailed to those who have e-mail and paper packs will be available for those who need it.
I'm not a teacher, but we are all working very hard to try to ensure our children have sufficient support to learn at home. There is also a rota for staff to go in as the school remains open for children of keyworkers and vulnerable children, and will be open right through the Easter holidays. I know I'm working just as hard at home as I do in school, different, but just as hard.

There is a thread at the moment about who comes out well and badly form all of this thus far.

Happy to report that many many posters are praising teachers.

I think all staff in schools should be added to that list, to be honest L TAs, office staff, exams officers (poor sods!!); cleaners etc etc etc

My DS's head sends out a personally written newsletter every single day and it's lovely.

Noideareally2 - go and read my post up there about that last week of school. It was absolute chaos. I've got a pre-teaching background in engineering for disaster management - this was worse in terms of emotional load. No guidance from government, constant criticism from all corners. I know everyone was/is stressed, but urgh.

Our school (Secondary Comp) Facebook page doesn't usually get many replies, but had absolutely loads of people saying thank you for all your hard work from parents after the schools closed. No negative comments. Similar amounts of praise after they posted that they were donating goggles and masks from the science dept to a hospital.
Not that they are always so lovely. I remember when we had the severe snow a couple of years ago loads of people complaining/giving abuse on the school twitter page. About half complaining the school closed and the other half complaining when it was open!

About half complaining the school closed and the other half complaining when it was open! 

😭 says it all!!

You can never do enough to keep some parents happy I'm afraid.

We are lucky in our school that the kids already had an iPad each (bought by parents) and they are used to doing work on it.

It is a mainly state funded school with a parental supplement to fund English speaking staff (we are not in the UK) so classes only have 20 kids and 2 staff.

Kids get 2 online lessons per day for 20 minutes which is more than enough for their attention span and the about 2 hours of work set which they submit on the ipad. They also have online German lessons and the teachers have set up book clubs and listen to the kids read online too.

But in our class, a couple of parents have been ranting and raving about it not being enough and that we are paying their wages bullshit.

It turns out that the one mother is WFH fulltime and her daughter wants to talk to her whilst she does her schoolwork.

Her expectation is that the school should do a full day of online live lessons so her kid is occupied and doesn't annoy her whilst she is trying to work.

She had our lovely teacher (who has been working 16 hour days to prepare and mark work) in tears with her self-centred poison.

People have never understood the workload of teachers and that has never been more obvious than now.

Sorry. That should probably read
some people have never understood the workload of teachers and that has never been more obvious than now

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.

@pfrench, regarding your message above, please, writing as a parent of a FSM/PP+ child, do respond to the work your children produce. My Y7 DD is absolutely working her socks off and producing some absolutely brilliant work, because she now has the time to digest, reflect and create. She’s had so many positive comments via email from her subject teachers over the past week, which is spurring her on to want to work harder. Better the carrot than the stick!

If I stayed till five I couldn't collect my dc by 5.30 so I would have to give up work. I start work at 7.30 instead. Let's stop policing each other

I get to work at 7 and don’t leave until 6:30. I usually bring work home with me as well. We all work long hours.

This is the staff room though so we should not have to speak as if being observed! (Though I know we get visitors). It's not the norm for most staff to be in school at 5 where I work. It is normal for most to be by 8 though and people can work at home without carrying bags of stuff these days due to how much is online. So I really don't know how anyone can tell how much someone else is working. I have younger colleagues who often stay later than me but I know they have quite a few social breaks while working after school - this is absolutely fine but it does mean I do more in a shorter time!

OP I think you were very brave to state that one of the extras you reported doing that last week was "staying until 5" every day

Can't remember when I last stayed until 5.00. I'm crap then.

Can't remember I wasn't working weekends and evenings once I got home. And getting up to mark at 5.00. a.m. This is when I work best.