Insistence on live lessons and full online school - seems many parents are struggling

[cansu]

I have seen several threads now where parents are talking about pressure from schools and workloads being too heavy. I expected this would happen. I am working a full school timetable of video lessons, marking and google meets. I am exhausted; goodness knows how some kids and parents are feeling. It seems to me that the vocal minority have pushed this agenda which many people don't want and can't manage. I really feel sorry for some of our parents who have several children at home, a lack of devices and are not able to supervise their kids on the laptop all day. They are struggling with online registrations and requirements to hand in work daily. Schools are being more demanding because of pressure from SLT who are worried that some parents will be unhappy with their provision and complain to Ofsted. Utterly bonkers.

Yep totally agree. A real example of "Be careful what you wish for" combined with that constant sense of Ofsted watching and judging. Good old Gavin is still at it too - complain to Ofsted, four hours of learning, must include video lessons etc.
I think it's more important that a school knows its families and understands how best they can benefit from remote learning and what they need to do so. So far our parents seem very happy with our provision. We had already rolled it out to two bubbles that had to self-isolate and the comments back were very favourable so we feel relatively confident that we are levelling it about right.

Yes. My own two children (different ages) plus teaching online. Too much.

Schools and teachers were given just over 12 hours notice. Gavin Williamson is asking parents to complain to Ofsted if the learning isn't good enough.
Instead, may I suggest, as a parent if you are happy with what your child/ren’s school is providing for remote learning, you could always let Ofsted know that instead.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Ofstednews

I found this on Facebook. I don't know how to start a thread. but perhaps one of you could put it somewhere with a high vol of traffic?

What a mess!
We didn’t do many live lessons last time and we had as many parents complaining about too much work as too little. I dread to think how those poor parents feel now.

My Facebook is filled with primary parents complaining and struggling. I haven't got the stamina to do a full timetable of live lessons, given that I haven't got the resources and everything is so new, it takes me longer to plan online lessons. Normally I do peer or self assessment too and just mark big pieces of work, but now I'm having to mark everything because I need to keep an eye on who is doing the work. Luckily I am at a school that respects our decision not to zoom teach if we don't want as long as we are teaching.

Expecting a normal curriculum is madness. We are not seeing the kids. They cannot keep up with 5 live lessons a day. We can't teach under these conditions, and all the extra admin it creates. And students cannot be expected to learn as normal. Set up to fail.

Totally agree.

My ds's primary was great in the spring/summer, brief class Zoom call each morning, then work on Purple Mash/TTRS or paper packs from the school.

Despite the great feedback, they've decided that they need to 'exceed expectations' and offer more live content, which resulted in a teacher friend of mine at the school doing a whole day on Zoom for 45 children yesterday.

Pointless for all concerned.

Younger children seem to really love a class video call with their teacher reading a story (and everyone else on mute!) but this full day of 'online learning' is the Emperor's New Clothes.

@Barkleyspaubles

Schools and teachers were given just over 12 hours notice. Gavin Williamson is asking parents to complain to Ofsted if the learning isn't good enough. Instead, may I suggest, as a parent if you are happy with what your child/ren’s school is providing for remote learning, you could always let Ofsted know that instead.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Ofstednews

I found this on Facebook. I don't know how to start a thread. but perhaps one of you could put it somewhere with a high vol of traffic?

Do you not think that speaking to the school first, after giving them a chance to get things set up, would be a better first step than contacting Ofsted?

@christinarossetti19 the poster is suggesting we praise the school via Ofsted.

Ofsted have been twats.

Sorry!

As you were...

I just wrote and bigged up my child's school. They were crap during lockdown 1, but did a load of focus on mental health, so you know... the important stuff. I couldn't give a flying shit about academic learning, but I get that I'm unusual in that. They are better this time.

Apparently Ofsted have been inundated with positive feedback 😆 And were unimpressed at Gav's suggestion to contact them.
schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-deluged-with-5000-emails-as-parents-turn-tables-on-williamson-by-reporting-superb-schools/

I think it's more important that a school knows its families and understands how best they can benefit from remote learning and what they need to do so

Completely agree with this!
I'm currently trying to push twice daily TEAMS sessions on my remote learners. They clearly aren't up for it, nobody's returned permission slips and I get radio silence when I message people about them. They do, however respond really well to paper packs sent home, videos and live worksheets and Kahoot quizzes. I'm trying to gently persuade SLT that if these things work and keep families engaged then we might be better basing learning on those. I think every school feels that they have to show live lessons though.

Sadly at my school a petition has been started to do fuve live lessons a day - it’s so depressing. The silver lining though is that they are in the minority and thankfully a much larger majority have been emailing their support saying that the 4 or 5 daily video lessons and plans with them are more than enough and they appreciate being able to access at a time convenient to them and return to them if needs be.

That petition really hurt though. It’s the lack of understanding of the bigger picture.

Fellow teachers I hope you’ve all survived week one of online. I’m just watching some of my outtakes on my iPad

Bananabuddy3 that sounds awful - unbelievable that some people think that this is the time to be making more demands from teaching staff.

Just found out my 7 year old has 4 live sessions a day from Monday. Which frankly is just increasing my stress levels. Thankfully my own class so far are having video inputs rather than attempting live. Although I am in class all next week so DH will be attempting to get DD logged in umpteen times a day while also doing his own job. Thank god teenage DS1 and DS2 just get on with lessons in their pyjamas on Teams and emerge occasionally to raid the kitchen.

I think there’s an element of live which can work, for example we have time tabled slots where we are on a Live Meeting, therefore children and parents can chat to us live about questions they have and the lesson in general. There’s a few of these a day, and allows for an immediate response. Otherwise parents can contact by email or the online platform when they wish and wait for a reply.

Personally I think it’s important to be able to pause if needed and work around parents working hours, that’s the primary reason my school won’t do live lessons, just live meetings and chats.

I’m thankful that most of our parents have been supportive, and honest - some have said they’ll never get it all done. That’s fine, we will keep in touch, they can only do what they can do.

Funnily enough one of the parents of a child in school emailed this week and said she would do as much of the work as possible with her child at the weekend but couldn’t promise all of it. I said the Tia with them at school has been working through the lessons with them and uploading it online for them (EYFS) - the reply just made me chuckle - bless she thought they were just playing all day and said she’s never felt so happy in her life and thank god she messaged me Friday - it did make me smile

Tia? TA!