The Forty Third Republic - Lockdown learning continues - when is half term?

[Staffdontblowitnow]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give the staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

My Head is adamant that we're not doing live lessons - until such time as we're forced to. We're in a reasonably affluent area and even so, too many families just haven't got the tech to be able to manage it.
We were told in our most recent virtual staff meeting, that out of 31 local primaries, 19 aren't doing any live stuff at all, and of the remaining 12, 4 are doing half an hour a day and 4 just under an hour a day. Only one is doing in excess of 2 hours.
The Heads all liaise with this info, just so they have the actual facts at their fingertips when parents do the old, "but every other school is doing such and such."

The Scottish Sun is apparently running a story about the idea of repeating the whole academic year....

The model is “proven” eh Baroness?!?? What, are they also marking, giving feedback and testing each and every kid watching?
Of course they aren’t. So how do they know it’s working so well? They don’t of course! All nonsense.

It’s like that Explore Learning company that keeps popping up on my Facebook feed charging hundreds for live video lessons. I know it’s staffed by sixth formers and uni students as I write references for students at our school who get jobs there.

But so many parents (and MPs) sadly lap it up

"live" to more than about 10 feels a bit unmanageable to me. After that you might as well be pre recorded, but available via messenging. But maybe that's my incompetence.
Talking about my incompetence - finally got the kids in bed and settled, had every intention of doing some work tonight, and now I just can't bring myself to switch on the laptop. I mean, I know tomorrow and half of Tuesday is all set....
I have a couple of reservations about live teaching. One is that they bugger off sometimes and then you feel you are wasting your time. Another is that there are kids that don't turn up to every lesson, and because it is live I feel.obliged to catch them up, which hacks off the rest. And the last is that my own kids are running feral, unsupervised, and occasionally interrupting my lessons!

My primary kids are getting absolutely no live input at all - but then I know the teachers are in teaching at least half full classes. I am very grateful for the odd video they do as I know they also have their own kids in the main. My youngest however is not doing any of the work set, and there's no way you can force a 4 yo with an iron will to learn....

I was suggesting delay taking on a new reception cohort and year 11 and 13 moving. I was thinking about the fact many countries don't start school till later and the increased staff to students ratio would help with catch up plus some degree of social distancing would be possible.

Massive implications obviously but it was an interesting idea.

I don't catch up the non attenders, sod that. I'd briefly do it in school but over teams it's a non starter.
Had a very annoyed parent Friday when I booted their child out of a call. The student hadn't responded to verbal or text interactions for 20 mins. Apparently "mum was next to him and heard/saw nothing". Luckily the teams meeting was recorded so I played it back to her and retagged said child in the chat.

4yos don't need to do the work set. A bit of reading to them, counting and playing and they will be fine. My 4yo wouldn't do it, thankful he's in nursery!

I need to be "more Herc"

My 4yo can recognise numbers in the thousands, do simple addition and subtraction to 20, can count in 10 and 2s, and start to read simple words. He's also pretty good at draughts and connect 4.
However he cannot take turns, won't do as he's bloody told, breaks stuff constantly, and still has toileting accidents...

Oh boys and toilet training... don't remind me! Mine still did til he was about 6!

@JanuaryChill

Oh boys and toilet training... don't remind me! Mine still did til he was about 6!

6??! Noooooooooo

Sorry. I think boys just can't be bothered....

I don't catch up non attenders either. Since we're meant to record all our lessons I tag them and post a link to the video which they duly ignore.

I then have the proof of their having ignored it to stick up the nose of the AssHoy who likes to ask for catch up work... it's all in teams, Mrs thing. Tell him to go back to March and work through the assignments. Oh he doesn't understand? Maybe he'd like to watch the videos.

We've been explicitly told not to record lessons..... Ah well - I always provide a Bitesize link for "extra information" so they can always go back and read those...

What's the rationale behind not recording?

I like it as a safeguarding back up.

I've been recording live lessons but I don't know how to actually access them afterwards. They are in the chat to download, but when I click to download them I have no idea where they end up? How do I watch the video back?

What platform are you using? Teams or Google?

No idea on rationale....

There seemed to be a debate in or school, and presumably elsewhere, about whether it was better for safeguarding to record the lesson or not to record the lesson!

I'm on Teams random. I know it should be there somewhere, I just can't find it.

I think it should go to your Stream account and from there you can change the permissions of who to share it with and then email the link or add to your Team (though is that just how our IT bods have set it up automatically?)

I record everything for safeguarding. Kids can't watch them as no access to meeting chat.

General chat - an SEN yr 3 wrote SHUT UP MRS RULE all over it on Friday. So his mum isnt there!!

Ours go into downloads when downloaded and are also stored on MS share point somewhere.

Repeating the academic would just create a further mess throughout the academic system from new joiners to uni leavers ..