DfE set up online school

[noblegiraffe]

Anyone seen this? I saw this screenshot on twitter but haven’t been able to find the actual story.

I wonder if that's why there was so little song and dance about the Oak Academy one because it was actually treading on the BBC toes which had already been championed by the BBC themselves and the DfE.

The BBC are doing it neuro because its part of their public service charter.

Yes I know that, I'm referring to the Oak Academy.

Zero joined up thinking. Education has been a shit show under this government.

And don't even get me started on how they teach multiplication!

I've just had a go at the first lesson. The interface is very clunky - in fact, I can't get past the quiz.

It took me a while to figure out that on the quiz I needed to click off the quiz to be able to scroll down. I didn't notice that while I was figuring that out, some of my answers changed as I was trying to scroll down the page while the cursor was engaged on the quiz part of the screen.

Got quiz score, supposed to click 'next activity' but that just keeps popping up at the bottom and vanishing when I try and click on it.

So I can't actually access the lesson

I've just reviewed the Maths lessons now up on Oak and BBC. Chalk and cheese. Quite mind boggling really.

(Regarding primary) Education was decentralised under the tories and the 2014 curriculum. Some good came of it but a huge amount of wasted time by teachers. I've spent ridiculous number of hours writing and rewriting curriculum topics trying to meet the latest trend.

Many older teachers I knew who were employed in LEAs lost their jobs or left and set up consultancies and cpd training which schools spent budgets on but also wasted at times.

Another example is RWI which I know Michael Rosen blasted a lot as someone made a lot of money getting schools to buy into that programme and then the dfe even promoted it. It's had excellent results in some areas but it's not perfect for all. And a perfectly good phonic programme exists.

Every school now has a different foundation subject curriculum and even the science is a bit all over the place. So there's little continuity. Previously the curriculum would have been pretty much all there to pick up and run with for continuity. The QCA docs were a bit dry but at least gave continuity.

Things like phonics have lots of continuity but apparently aren't following where they should be on the Oak Academy!

Good or bad reef?

I really cba to watch either!

I c b a to even investigate; ds has some work books and we have an old rarely used reading eggs subscription which has an excellent maths section too. He learnt more from an impromptu woodwork project this weekend than anything else he'll do over the next month.

I mean they could have just nationalised reading eggs! Or education city! Or espresso! Doodle maths! Or Nessy! Or any of the other already there things!

I'm not setting work in our school as am part time ppa, and as Sen, as usual, we have to do it all ourselves anyway.

My laptop crashed just after I noticed the first year 10 lessons said it was reviewing material from yesterday..

I looks at the teacher profiles. I tried very hard not to view them as a clique of teachers but they are form the same schools and have the same sort of career profiles. But they may well be fantastic teachers. it is , in some ways a good thing that parents might nose into these teacher profiles and see how many of them went to Oxbridge and KCL (although inwardly I am not understanding quite why that is the number one bit of info they need to share).

If any English teachers are on here, you could definitely do worse than head to Jennifer Web's book(s) or website for some great resources.

Oh well, it just told me I got an answer wrong in a quiz when I didn't!!!!

The story behind some of it:

davidthomasblog.com/2020/04/whats-wrong-with-oak-national-academy/

Why is there a quiz?

At least they admit they're not 100%

I'm not sure how they'll offer specialist (Sen?) stuff. That's individualised by teachers who know their children well.

TBH I cringed watching the BBC 9-11 year old lesson. You would have thought it was aimed at 6 year olds given the presenting style. I own a 9yo (Y5) and he would be totally patronised by it.

Oak looked better, although I really didn't need a rundown of what the Young Lovely has been doing with her lockdown before the maths. I'm going to look into that some more. I'll get DS to do one of the English lessons later.

There is a quiz because that is proper teaching these days : knowledge based curriculum and all that.

Therefore, if there are quizzes , the answers do have to be correct!!

There also doesn't seem to be anyway of teachers contacting them (other than publicly) to tell them of errors or problems.

Gutted my subject isn’t there! Back to my own prep then!

Did the criteria to be ‘recruited’ include “being under 30”?!?!

Seriously though, better than nothing and presumably they have done this in addition to their own teaching

Piggy yes I can already see the wrong Y7 Maths video has been uploaded compared to the lesson content.

I don't want to criticise what is clearly a huge amount of effort.

There is definitely a type of person who has been included in this project however and I think that has upset a few people.

You can give feed back here

twitter.com/dmthomas90/status/1252119523148382208?s=21

My issue is that there will be many parents with the time and discipline to get their children to do this.

And many who won't/ can't.

So there is still going to be a divide favouring the more able, more privileged pupils.

The quiz is to assess prior and post learning. But as someone has pointed out, some children find tests very off putting.

@NeurotrashWarrior The divide will always be there and sadly this situation will amplify it.

There isn't much schools can do remotely to stop the gap widening. Stopping setting work for all students is wrong. Therefore we know the gap will widen and cross that bridge when the students are back in the building.

Am I being dozy?

I am looking for Secondary Science. The BBC just has videos in space and google is not helping with the Oak stuff.

Does anyone have a link?

Sorry there's always one.

www.thenational.academy/online-classroom/schedule/#schedule

Have you arrived at this page RigaBalsam?

www.thenational.academy/online-classroom

Not sure if that helps. I’m having a nose at the BBC stuff right now but again, they have nothing for my subject that I can see, either!

Problem with the science stuff is that they've started right at the start of the course so cells for year 9. Ok if all you're doing is revision but we've got to carry on from where we got to

This could become the new way.

Bite size seems better to me. From the point of view of a parent trying to wfh and teach a year 5 and year 3 (year 3 with ASD) it needs to be a bit simple. Because it needs to be done while I'm also fielding phone calls, video meetings etc.

I know teachers can't win at the moment. I wish I could opt out of my kids school emails. They are ding a fantastic job, but the constant stream of work and suggestions just makes me feel guilty about how little mine are doing.