The Forty Sixth Republic - online learning has killed the 'snow day'

[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

Oh and apparently Halfon has said that the 8 Mar date for all schools to return must be "signed in blood" rather than a line in the sand - which surely is misunderstanding the second metaphor?!

Does Halfon know what happens to Faust?

I'm just idly thinking about reconstructing how we do education in this country.

I'm aware there are lots of downsides to this idea, but also plenty of upsides especially under current circumstances.....

So.... You know how you do courses at university and some courses are compulsory, and some have other courses you need to do first .... Well why can't we do that?
It would support the slower learners as they could retake courses or go slower, would make online provision easier, negate the need for "exams" as there would just be continuous assessment American style...
So you could have "beginner phonics" "early reader skills" "KS3 chemistry" etc. Pupils could progress faster or slower by completing assignments to a required level.
Crazy I know - but for example my dd1 is whizzing through oak Academy ks3-4 science pretty well, while her maths is lagging behind. My dd2 won't write anything for toffee but can give you lots of nuance about history and her inference and comprehension when reading is pretty good. My youngest can't draw, won't write, just about to move onto set 2 phonics, but grasped fractions with no problems when I was teaching his sister today...
Lots of people have "spiky" profiles. Why can't we let them excel at some stuff?
When they are in school it would function like portfolio work - teachers being facilitators and teaching specific sections of content but the pupils have to complete the assignments and be graded to progress

Am I crazy?

More time at a desk might go some way to assuaging adult guilt but is it really what these children need

Do you know, I’ve been pondering whether Us4Them would be for or against longer school days/terms and I thought not. They’re banging on about how awful it is to miss out on education, but only right now. They want their kids in school now but really to make things normal, and losing the summer wouldn’t be normal. Plus they want to go on holiday.

However, despite basically saying here that kids don’t need more classroom time, I can’t help but notice she also had a dig at the unions for blocking it. Even though she doesn’t want it.

I just don’t get all this banging on about hordes of traumatised kids with PTSD though. I taught a load of them for 3 months after the last lockdown and they seemed ok, tbh.

Would it cost more money @EnemyOfEducationNo1 ?

Oh......

()

Sorry cheap jibe there enemy. Your plan sounds lovely but I suppose what I meant was, how would each child be guided through this maze of modules?

Yes noble. (Always a good thing to say)

Yeah I know, crazy...
I would see it as different teachers teach different modules. So like a Yr1 pupil moving up to yr2 for maths.

I just don’t get all this banging on about hordes of traumatised kids with PTSD though. I taught a load of them for 3 months after the last lockdown and they seemed ok, tbh.
The terminology of this bothers me. They've not been in a war zone. They've not crossed an ocean in a tiny boat. They might be worried about the virus and missing friends etc... but PTSD feels hyperbolic to me.
But I'm not a parent, so I don't know for sure.

I know I'm a lone voice but I still don't think we're going back to school on March 8th.

What would suit ds (and me) would be to be allowed to just do 5 gcses. Obviously it would need to include English and Maths (I do believe Science is important but it's pretty shit at our school and most kids are thoroughly turned off by year 9 and all the more resentful because it's compulsory and it gets so many lessons per fortnight).

I think he'd opt for Maths, English, his PE Btech which presumably counts and Geography and History (he does to hums because they're allowed to drop mfl and do that or an extra art/design subject). And you know that would be a pretty balanced curriculum and enough work.

If they insisted on filling up all the gaps on his timetable there could be study periods, lots of PE and some emotional literacy and mental health type courses from decent people who are fit to do that (eg. there's no point strong arming a maths teacher into doing touchy feely stuff if they hate it and it's not going to work if you do - it needs to done by those with the skills to do it. No offense to our maths teachers -some of you may love that stuff.)

From a selfish perspective of what would work for my year 9, and I could see working for tons of our kids, that would be my choice.

Never going to happen obviously.

@MrsHamlet

I just don’t get all this banging on about hordes of traumatised kids with PTSD though. I taught a load of them for 3 months after the last lockdown and they seemed ok, tbh. The terminology of this bothers me. They've not been in a war zone. They've not crossed an ocean in a tiny boat. They might be worried about the virus and missing friends etc... but PTSD feels hyperbolic to me. But I'm not a parent, so I don't know for sure.

I am a parent and my son and 99% of the kids I teach would agree with you that this is hyperbolic (if they knew what that meant )

@TheHoneyBadger I have worn myself out guessing what is going to happen over the last year. However I think primaries will go back and possibly yr 11/13 in secondaries. They shouldn't (numbers still to high/variants etc) but I don't trust them to hold firm.

I would also probably do a half hour numeracy lesson (perhaps very practical numeracy for living as an adult and paying bills and coping with money etc) and a half hour literacy lesson every day separately from, or in addition to, Maths and English. Maybe for everyone in ks3 and then it continues for those who struggle into ks4.

I personally think there is way too much stuffed into the curriculum at the cost of basic skills and emotional and social education.

*too

I'm a parent and I agree it's hyperbolic. I mean, dd might be an outlier for actively enjoying lockdown, but she's perfectly happy at home. Far happier than when she's at school, honestly, because she finds school quite a stressful environment.

None of the kids I teach seemed traumatised after lockdown 1. Lost learning? yes. Lost social skills? Yes. Traumatised? No, not unless they'd lost relatives. Forgotten how to behave in school (or indeed any form of polite society)? Oh my word, yes. Still no trauma though.

I'm now thinking how wonderful it would be if ds could drop science and his bloody business studies gcse. It would free up about 9 hours a fortnight of lessons and remove a whole load of resentment and 'it's all too much' from him.

He's coming to absolutely hate school and I'm sure I blame him. And he's lucky to be fairly bright - god knows how miserable it is when you're not but you're still forced along through the years doing ten bloody subjects when you actually just getting the right support to be literate and numerate when you left is what you need

The sad fact is ds is happier out of school than in. If he could still see his mates and get out on his bike and playing basketball he'd probably love to be home schooled again but fuck that! I haven't got it in me to home school at secondary level without a lot of money to throw at resources. I guess that's pretty telling though - if I won the lottery I'd let him leave school immediately and hire tutors and be a private candidate.

Sorry multiple posting. I'm fairly disillusioned with our whole school model.

Rule, and anyone else teaching in quite deprived areas, do you recognise the traumatised kids narrative? (Hope have got that right rule.)

I agree wrt financial and emotional skills.

I just think of we allowed more elements of choice into learning, we would get much better engagement. Kids are funny like that - sometimes they want to binge learn history, sometimes they are hugely into manga. Why not harness that? Have different courses they can choose with lots of different courses giving the prerequisite skills for the next course.

Gosh honey my dd is the same, and like you I would hire tutors and let dd study at home if I had the money. She's so much more relaxed at home, and learning quite a lot really. She does need the interaction of seeing her friends, but she could do that with extra curriculars like guides. I'm not sure it would help her social anxiety/shyness/selective mutism, but we could work on that separately.

I'm pretty disillusioned with the current school model as well! It just doesn't work for so many, and turns so many off learning that there has to be a better way.

Re deprived areas. The pupils who I am truly worried about - living in a suspected drugs den, or worse, have just gone AWOL. I'm trusting the pastoral and safeguarding team have it in hand.
Otherwise, nah. The kids are constantly on Snapchat and Instagram and chatting with each other. Playing online games together. Going for walks with one other person. They're ok.

I obviously think science is important but for those who are looking at 2/3 years of study to come out with a 1/1 or a 2/2 I think they'd be better served by a single science GCSE with the basics in or a more practical BTEC style course.

My bottoms sets are often lovely kids but being forced to sit through so many hours of stuff they don't understand I the hope that they can take in some of it demoralises them, so they act out, and it can become crowd control instead of teaching.

I also think making them do 8/9/10 GCSE when they are mostly going to get low grades is wrong. Cut it to English Lang, Maths, Cut down single GCSE science and 2 or 3 of their choice.

Current school system is rubbish for quite a lot of kids I think. We definitely need smaller groups and more choice in what they are doing. The weakest kids really need us to be actively teaching them life skills, but there's not really time in the curriculum for that. And any good stuff that's fine in citizenship is often ruined by cleverer kids who don't see the point because they don't get a GCSE in that, so they mess about.

My school is fairly deprived - at first glance you’d probably say no to traumatised but we did a one on one day back in September which actually threw up tonnes more issues just under the surface and I would say there were a fair number of MH issues - some from the effects of lockdown, more due to families not really being ideal in that scenario, actually a fair number scared about being in school and catching it and passing it on at home. Many worried about their education - particularly those we’d been working with prior to it all to break the cycle of not going far in education. I don’t think we would describe any as ‘traumatised’ or suffering from PTSD but if you came to my classes you’d say they were normal if you weren’t in the loop I guess.

Interestingly this lockdown has been better for many as we are remote live teaching and they get social contact and opportunities to talk one on one. We know now who to look out for, what issues might be etc and we think we’ve supported better. The feedback from students has supported that - and we’ve set up special emails and ways to contact with amazing support staff.

So I would say not traumatised but probably more issues than you’d perhaps see just from the front of a classroom for us.

Need to catch up with the thread - crazy busy day off! But I just wanted to say thanks to @HercwasanEnemyofEducation, for all of your Desmos help. That and the ASMP training have been really useful. My department seem to be really warming to it as well.

I'm going to try and get my Y7 who are lovely, to join a class tomorrow, and practice doing all the pacing and restricting screens with them. There is a big spread of ability, so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

@Frlrlrubert

I obviously think science is important but for those who are looking at 2/3 years of study to come out with a 1/1 or a 2/2 I think they'd be better served by a single science GCSE with the basics in or a more practical BTEC style course.

My bottoms sets are often lovely kids but being forced to sit through so many hours of stuff they don't understand I the hope that they can take in some of it demoralises them, so they act out, and it can become crowd control instead of teaching.

I also think making them do 8/9/10 GCSE when they are mostly going to get low grades is wrong. Cut it to English Lang, Maths, Cut down single GCSE science and 2 or 3 of their choice.

Totally agree with you frlrl

I spoke to my bottom set year 11s about their plans for jobs / careers. They all had great (and achievable) plans. They are perfectly aware they won’t do well but have to do it anyway.
A single GCSE would be so much better for them.

Those issues, being scared about passing on covid, worried about education etc are entirely reasonable concerns that I would not necessarily class as mental health issues. No one is having a great time in this pandemic, because it’s a pandemic, but I’m not sure pathologizing understandable worries and frustrations and less than ideal circumstances then creating hysterical headlines panicking about it is helpful at all.

That article starts with that girl who has Tourette’s, attributed to lockdown (an extreme example and possibly heightened for effect) and then goes on to describe school-fulls of children as suffering PTSD.

It’s scaremongering. Parents will be looking at their kids who are naturally acting out because homeschooling is shit and not seeing your friends is shit and worrying that they actually have a mental health condition. Traumatised.

They’re just having a bit of a shit time.