Is your school still asking you to post work online for pupils?

[iloveitalia]

I'm a secondary school teacher. We are still being asked to upload lessons for pupils who are off school isolating due to covid. With covid numbers being so high, I am basically having to upload work for nearly every single lesson.
In addition to having to post work for these pupils, I also have one pupil who has been off school all year as she is in hospital. I must upload work for her and also for another pupil, who due to chronic illness only attends about one third of lessons.
I don't teach using power point as I teach Languages, so find the sourcing/ scanning/adapting of suitable resources really exhausting on top of all other teaching.

Is anyone else currently in a similar position?

I feel as if what we are being asked to do is unreasonable. I feel close to breaking point.

Yes we are and I feel the same as you. It’s as massive extra workload. I also have to put work online for almost every lesson. I teach a science so I can hardly post the experimental method and expect them to have a Bunsen burner at home!
It wouldn’t be as bad if the kids actually did the work but I’m basically spending hours and hours each week for absolutely no learning to happen. I’m really pissed off about it.
I also think my school is taking the piss a bit now. In the past if someone had a broken leg for eg then they would just be expected to catch up when they returned but now we have to set all this work, that they don’t do, and then catch them up when they return anyway.

Same as you guys, all work has to be online and live lessons offered to those at home with covid or other things.
They rarely join in, and if they do seem to disappear part way through, just another layer of extra work and stress.

We have never been asked to put work online for absent pupils. They can get paper copies of the work that the class will be doing that week if they want, but not all do.

OP lower your expectations of what goes online. Are you getting work back?

Use Oak academy if your language is on there. The resources sent home don't need to be exactly the same.

I agree with Hercisback, I'd just post links to Oak Academy if you can get away with that. We have always had to provide something to students off on long term illness though, I think that's always been a legal requirement. I'm quite lucky in that I do teach using PowerPoint, I have a good bank of my own lessons and those shared by my department, so posting the PowerPoint to Teams is easy. It's also helpful for students for revision, and in A Level it's expected students will download and use them so they don't have to spend time taking notes in lessons. Rather than trying to adapt your own lessons to post on line, do you have any PowerPoint resources shared in your department that you could post instead? I wouldn't bother changing them, just post what is most relevant to your lesson so there's something. Or post a link to work on Seneca. It's the act of providing something that needs to be done, it doesn't need to be an at home version of exactly what you're teaching in those lessons anymore. That legal requirement due to Covid has gone.

@JaffavsCookie that's ridiculous you still need to do live lessons. The legislation that required work to be the same as in school expires at the end of March. Under no circumstances should you be expected to do that next term. Tbh, I hated hybrid lessons so much, I think I'd resign, it's a sign your school are off their rocker unreasonable.

They are fab in every other way though, just very keen to please the parents

Thank you for the useful tips- I think that I do need to lower my expectations. This has been very helpful. Thank you all very much

We are still being asked to do live lessons too even for pupils who are off for non covid related issues. Is anyone else finding that posting work online is actually affecting participation in lessons? I’m sick of hearing kids arguing that they don’t need to complete their work in class because it’s all online anyway so they can do it later!

Feart there’s some research on uni students that when lectures are posted online, as well as delivered live, learning is reduced because students think they don’t need to pay attention in the lecture and they’ll just catch up later. But of course they don’t so end up worse off than if they’d just paid attention in the first place.

@Debroglie
That makes sense. This is my fear for my GCSE classes this summer

It’s exhausting and we don’t even have very high covid numbers at the moment.

I would say this is exactly what Oak is for (if your subject is there) since the Government think they are so very wonderful.

I currently have covid as do 2/3 of my class. White Rose Maths and Oak are doing the heavy lifting both in and out of school this week.

Yes, we still have to provide lessons for covid absence - it’s such a pain. Thankfully we are no longer doing live lessons or videos, but you have to post enough lessons on so sometimes it’s easier to video it then write a plan!

I had a school trip today, me and the class were out all day. Yet I still had to produce a whole day of work for the pupil off with covid, so whole lessons that the rest of the class weren’t doing! Plus double planning for the next two days as all our writing over tomorrow and Friday is based on a trip this child hasn’t done. So I need something different.

The worst part is is that half the children don’t do it for whatever reason, so half the time it’s just time down the drain. The other problem is the now expectation. We send it for Covid, but then one of my parents emailed and said child had been sick once but still couldn’t come in for 48 hours so could I please send work. Afternoon dentist appointment, parent asked for the afternoon lesson to be put up. It’s not sustainable. It’s so much extra work.

Yes we are still having to upload daily lesson slides for any child off with Covid. It's pointless...they don't do it 🤷‍♀️

Since September I've had two thirds of my class off with Covid...only one child did the work I'd uploaded. I'm SO over this now!!!