UKC

Just wondering if my daughters school is 'on par' with other schools around the country. Better or worse, and when can we expect to get back up & running.

We've been receiving pretty negative emails throughout the pandemic, trending towards blaming the government for anything and everything. We've received very little work to carry out. It tends to take 20-30 minutes then my wife and I add 2-3 hours extra work on top of it. Obviously we're not teachers so don't know how useful it is but feel it's better than nothing. There is no offers of zoom lessons/teaching and no other guidelines of where we can get extra work, although we have asked.

We've had another email today stating that it's unlikely that the kids will be going back in September full time, although the news contradicts this, and no real advice apart from blaming the government. 

Is this fairly widespread or do we have a particularly difficult school? Are all schools still only receiving children from keyworkers? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? My daughter is only in first year but children in later years are seriously going to struggle missing 6 months of school.

What are your experiences, has anyone been told any good news? 

In reply to deacondeacon:

Not our experience. Our primary kids have been set daily maths and English, with some contact with teachers by email and even phone rarely. There are also other subjects covered on a weekly basis. Communication has been regular and informative. 

Your comment about September puzzles me. Most kids outside Wales won't be going back until next academic year, will they? 

In reply to Monk:

That right but our school is stating that September is unlikely, and if it is, it will probably be 1 week on/1 week off. 

In reply to deacondeacon:

That sounds less than most people seem to be getting although I teach at secondary level and my kids who are in school or in secondary school. Perhaps some primary schools are doing less but that's not the impression I've got. But we as teachers have been told by both unions and our bosses, not to do live video lessons because there are safeguarding and privacy concerns, but also because kids who don't have reliable internet access will be disadvantaged. some schools are doing an awful lot of teaching despite not using video lessons. The independent sector seem to be doing a lot of video teaching, but I guess they have to justify their fees!

In reply to deacondeacon:

I can only go on my nieces and the school I was on supply in when this kicked off.  Opinions are all mine.

In my opinion the government haven’t handled it well, but I think it’s really not something I’d expect to see in written communication to parents. 

Oldest niece has been getting probably 3 hours of work a day, but then she is probably one of those kids who does loads of work at school and finishes quickly.  She is 14. 

Younger niece (primary) I’m not as sure, its harder to get details from her, she says she gets loads, I have no idea if that’s 1 hour or several.  She seems happy enough.  

Youngest niece is in France, far too much work was given in my opinion and extremely prescriptive and boring.  She is only 6 and eventually my sister decided to limit the tasks and teach herself.  Teacher was phoning my sister weekly which seemed excessive.  She is now back at school alternating weeks anyway.  

I was working from home until Easter (when I would have finished that temporary position anyway)

I was setting 3 Maths lessons a week for KS3 and I set a massive amount of work for my year 10 top set before we locked down as I anticipated the situation and also as many parents had already withdrawn their children. 

My very personal view is that teenagers need to get their heads down and do the work and should be doing several hours a day.  

Age 7 to 10 they should definitely be doing some every day, maybe a couple of hours.  

6 and under they should in my view be “playing” and reading and measuring and drawing and cooking, doing fun things.  Children learn by play.   They can write letters to their friends and relatives, they can do some maths in the kitchen, they can play shop and learn money, all the educational activities.  

In reply to deacondeacon:

When you say first year, is she 5 or 11?

I’m happy to help out, I’m bored anyway so I can help with ideas and resources if you like.   

In reply to deacondeacon:

Your not alone. Both of us are Nurses and our youngest has been going to primary school but the elder 2 have been staying at home as they were the only children in school initially so we took them out to try to protect the teachers from any virus passed from us via them. Unfortunately they have had little work set, hardly any feedback or contact and when they have messaged their teachers they have not had a reply. We get home late and are struggling to then set them work. I fear they have completely lost a large period of education.

cheers

Chris

In reply to deacondeacon:

I've been setting English and Maths work on Google Classrooms for my Primary classes. On top of these, we have provided home PE, foundations subjects and some extra fun stuff too. We have been marking and providing feedback on Maths and English and attempting to provide additional support using email and Google Classrooms.

We have also been running an 'Emergency School' for the children of key workers and children we have identified as vulnerable.  We are now more widely open at school. Running the home learning and being in school has been pretty tiring but we feel it's important that the children at home continue to receive a high quality provision.

I've had the added pressure of reports to write this week although have managed to timetable the last 2 days at home to make a good dent in them.

Right, that's my one sensible post for the month. I'll now go back to being deliberately obtuse.

In reply to deacondeacon:

From the thread seems like we are about average - kids get work to do each day and the older one (7) gets a 30 minute class video call each day.

Like others the comms have been a bit all over the shop - quite a bit directed at how bad a job the government is doing (and I agree it’s been a proper joke in numerous aspects - but I wouldn’t be relaying that in a “work context”).

What has surprised me is the lack of “how can we make this work / what could we try” approach - it’s been more the governments said this, that doesn’t work, so give up.

This is perhaps something I hadn’t appreciated about education - my perception was Head Teachers would have more autonomy/drive/creativity to keep educating children. It is clearly a more union / central controlled situation than I thought. 

Compare this to where I work where we have been trialing/testing all sorts of stuff - some of which has worked some of which has failed spectacularly......but we worked on the principle the world had changed and we needed to adapt and continue to deliver stuff. 

working a c50 hour week - on top of shifts split with my wife to look after the kids - is now starting to get into the fatigue phase. 
 

In reply to marsbar:

Thanks Marsbar, she's just turned 6. That's a very kind of you to offer, one of my wives friends is a primary school teacher and is arranging us a mini schedule/timetable over the weekend. 

In reply to deacondeacon:

It feels particularly frustrating that we  managed to get the shops open, like bloody IKEA and primark but not the schools!! (and I understand the reasoning, with social distancing issues much more difficult in schools but it doesn't stop it from being annoying. 

In reply to deacondeacon:

My daughter (in Y8) is getting somewhere around 3+ hours of day a week, sent by email.  The work seems to be required to be submitted differently for each subject.  A technical logistics nightmare for us!  This week, she has finally been given a timetable with lessons broadcast live - however, only three have happened, which means I've had to spend the week hanging around at home and arranging my day for the absent teachers. Not good when I need to work as well.

From the point of view of a single parent trying to work (front line key work, irregular hours/days), this set up is very hard.  My daughter is academic and enthusiastic, but I am getting fatigued by it.  Still, only a few weeks left of disorganised bedlam before the summer break!

In reply to deacondeacon:

My two who are in reception and yr 2 have had no real work set or feedback from set work although set work has been things like draw a picture of an animal, make breakfast etc which is sent via ClassDojo. Both have no access to laptops, tablets etc at home. 

They now go to school for 3 days a week and from next week full time I’m a key worker and their mum is to. During their 3 days back they’ve done things like watch films, colouring and playing on the field.etc so no school work here either and the work that was set now won’t be done at all. 

To be quite honest I’m not sure what the teachers have/are doing. One brings her children with her to play with the others while she is supervising and the TA’s are not around. The school has about 70 pupils and the word amongst parents is that no one has had any differing input from us. 
 

My other half has children in two different schools- primary and secondary. The primary has about 35-40 pupils. The primary school has made contact a couple of times via the phone and set some tasks to pupils of varying standard but all needing access to a laptop/printer. They were supposed to go back on 29th for 1/2 a day a week but that has now been binned until September. The secondary school had no real contact for weeks (Yr8) and now they are having regular work set but again this is via email and needs a laptop to complete and submit. Feedback is shall we say sporadic at best for them. 
 

In reply to deacondeacon:

My son is in reception and I feel they have done about as well as they can. Plenty of relevant work sent home for him and his teacher gives us a weekly phone call. Plenty of advice on how to help him with the work too.

Since reception aged kids have returned he has been in 4 days a week every other week and unfortunately nursery has not been able to open annd fridays the teachers can set work/ phone other parents. This is all due to the size of the school, it's an old Victorian building where I went in the 80s. Back then it had nursery, reception + years 1-3, but now it goes up to year 6 by basically splitting rooms and having some areas shared by different year groups. There is simply no way they could fully open with any sort of distancing/ keeping the kids in bubbles and this was well communicated to parents. 

Unless distancing is completely abandoned I fail to see how all children could return in September even if half of all kids came in, this is no fault of the school, but just due to the small size and number of children. 

In reply to deacondeacon:

Has primary school changed since my day?! Work? Primary school was basically childcare. If you could read, count and do basic arithmetic by the end then that was all that was needed really. Many countries don't start kids in school until 6 or 7! I'm sure if you are reading books together and she is involved in daily tasks which involve basic numeracy (baking, shopping etc) then she will be absolutely fine. I would use the time to improve skill she won't get at school like cycling, building fires, learning about birds and plants, map reading etc. Use this as bonus time for much more interesting learning than she would do in school! (I'm not a parent, but I do remember being a kid and doing nothing through most of school and still pretty reasonable grades.)

In reply to girlymonkey: Hmmmmm, certainly there are high end of primary expectations in England and the targets given to schools are based on progress as well as attainment. Had we done SATS this year our Y6 cohort of 11 were all  expected to meet the end of year standards and 50% were expected to achieve what's termed Greater Depth in SPAG, reading and maths - a really high level of attainment.

In reply to deacondeacon:

At our school we have been providing a full weekly timetable for all subjects with links to resources and resources downloadable from our OneDrive. We have also been using an online platform for the children to upload their work. Teachers then review this and comment. We had this up and running by the end of the second week of lockdown. As for children back in school, by next Monday we will have just over 50% of our children back though we have offered places to all children. We are a small, rural school (about 60 children) with already small classes but we are making use of our large hall and are planning to accommodate all our children full-time in September. Since children returned after lockdown about 50% of their learning has been outside.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

The kid in the OP has just turned 6! Surely all they learn to do is colour neatly, get themselves changed after PE, learn to share nicely and learn not to swing on their chair??

Thankfully I don't think we had to do SATS. I think they were trying to bring them in but it was being contested or something. I have vague memories of hearing about it. I also moved between Scottish and English systems, so who knows if I just fell between different systems of doing them. Given how seriously I took all my other exams, I can't imagine I would have cared one bit about them if I had had to do them!

In reply to deacondeacon:

In broad strokes, the school I work at:

- pupils have lessons every day, whether that is work set in google classroom or google meet lessons or a mixture depends on the specific teacher. Timetabled lesson time varies between years but is in the 10 to 15 hours per week range. Google mail and google hangouts are used for communication.

- additional work to be completed during non-contact time is set at the discretion of the teachers.

- all parents are kept updated regularly with factual information about the current expectations, progress towards opening and just everything that is going on. I think a newsletter with all this stuff goes out once a week.

- a relatively similar approach to misbehaviour and non-attendance is taken to that during term time, the key being communication between pupils, parents, teachers and any others involved.

This has been the setup since the first week back after the Easter break. We are luckily blessed with an excellent head and one of the teachers with outstanding IT skills has gone above and beyond to construct this system and keep it working smoothly.

In reply to jonfun21:

Yes and no. When it comes to what anyone in the teaching profession can and cannot do, they have to look at how the SNCT, Unions, Central government, Local council, Local council education department, parents and staff all weigh in. Thus, some SMTs will have considerably more leeway to try things without a horrible backlash than others and some SMTs will have been specifically instructed in ways by their councils which make it basically professionally dangerous for them to ignore these instructions (think about the example above of google meet - if you can be accused of discriminating against pupils without internet connection by doing online classes, do you choose to run that risk or not? What if you have been specifically told not to?)

In reply to henwardian:

It will be interesting to see how secondary schools deal with the return to school.

Only 27% of primary schools are academies and therefore most primaries are still controlled by the local councils.

The 72% of secondary schools which are academies, and therefore not under council control, will have far more leeway to adopt their own individual plans.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Just think how well you could have done if you had put some effort in :P

Seriously though, there will always be kids who do no work at school and manage to coast through on ability alone up to a certain stage but I would argue that suggesting other children do that is setting them up to underachieve and giving them an attitude that will do them no favours when they get older. You can be as cynical as you like but all other things being equal, working hard _does_ get better results from whatever you are doing.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Well she can read & write, and not just 'the cat sat on the mat' and can also carry out addition & subtraction. A 6 year old is definitely doing proper schooling and not just playschool. I'm not some pushy parent that wants my kid to go to Oxford or Cambridge, I'm just trying to make sure that she doesn't miss out on some basic, early education. 

In reply to girlymonkey: there are very high expectations set for the end of each stage of primary learning and unfortunately it doesn't matter whether children, parents or teachers think those expectations are right or important, they form a big part of how a school is judged. No headteacher or teacher wants to be told their school is inadequate or requires improvement so we have to make sure children meet the standards. There are ways of doing this however, without destroying childhood.

In reply to TobyA:

Might be different in Scotland but what our unions said was that you shouldn't feel forced to engage with live lessons. Unfortunately some people interpreted that as a blanket ban and very few teachers at my school are doing it.

The equity issue is less of an issue here in Highland as every pupil has been issued with a Chromebook over the last few years but engagement with live lessons has been very very poor. I had 9 pupils out of a year group of about 100 yesterday. However, those 9 absolutely loved it and I got an email from a parent saying her daughter was 'buzzing' afterwards so I'm happy to crack on with it whatever school/union say!

In reply to DaveHK:

I'm not sure many Unions have bathed themselves in glory over this, to be honest - the rail unions aren't either.  It's a time when flexibility and adaptability is needed, and dare I say a small measure of personal risk - the wartime analogies aren't totally false.  But many Unions have just been pushing for their members to stay home and claim the furlough money, which simply can't go on forever, and haven't been quick to suggest ways forward, mostly just saying "no" to stuff.

But then many of the big Unions are basically luddites - the RMT certainly are.

Good on you for your efforts with online learning.

In reply to jonfun21:

Both of those things are true in different contexts. In some ways schools have complete autonomy and in others their hands are tied.

In terms of getting online learning going schools have plenty of autonomy but face different challenges and have responded in very different ways. Some have gone for it with a can do attitude and innovative approaches and others have basically just given up at the first hurdle. And of course everything in between those two.

How schools are dealing with this is very much a top down thing and I wouldn't want to be a head at this point* for all the tea in China. For a head to do a good job in this situation requires both excellent leadership skills and personal circumstances that allow you to exercise them. You can't be busting out the inspirational leader stuff if you're sick yourself or a single parent or whatever. So although some schools have done better than others I'm willing to cut the less good ones a wee bit of slack.

*Or any point.

In reply to Neil Williams:

I'm in Scotland so things are obviously better here. Sorry! Did I say better? I meant different...  

Joking aside, the Union response here seems quite sensible and supportive of both members and govt/pupils/parents.

I was at an EIS reps meeting and as well as all the concerns about safety and workload there was also a strong feeling that we need to do our bit even from the representative from the union head office.

Given the situation in England it's probably quite difficult to disentangle the unions actually position from the media representation of it.

In reply to henwardian:

I was told that all the way through school, but never saw the point when I was fine without! I think being mediocre is great. No stress of having to keep up with expectations etc. I had a chilled childhood where school just happened and I got on with life. I studied for my higher maths and got a C in it, everything else was A and B grades. I don't need to be the best, I'm happy just being fine and relaxed!

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

But that is the school's problem! A six year old who can already read pretty well and sounds like she is pretty bright will be absolutely fine by the end of her school career even if she doesn't hit some ridiculous targets now. If the school are choosing not to set much work then they are choosing not to hit those targets. I have every suspicion the kid will be fine in life! If she is encouraged to be inquisitive, to read lots and generally take an interest in developing new skills and knowledge, she will get on well in life. That is all more likely to happen at home with engaged parenting than it is in a classroom with 30 kids at her age!

In reply to deacondeacon:

Part 1 - General picture

We have two, one in year 2 and one in year 4 (both primary).

At the start we got what had been the teachers' lesson plans as attachments which gave us something to work with but assumed rather too much knowledge on the parents' part.  There was a strong message of 'do what you can' which translated for many into 'do nothing' after the first burst of enthusiasm.  Contact with teachers was non-existent, I emailed a couple of pieces of work and got no response, turns out later my emails had been going into someone's junk folders!  Lots of emails and whatsapps flying round various networks at this time with good ideas for where to find resources and DIY it.

At Easter I threw in the towel (my wife was still going to work in a hospital so I was trying to hold down my job and do childcare which was impossible) and they went to Keyworker/Hub School.  At this point the message from school changed to 'We have expectations' and the platform changed to SeeSaw which I had very little to do with but seemed pretty horrid.  Anecdotal contact with other parents suggests many are doing nothing or next to nothing and only those with the time and the natural disposition are still doing any type of formal home school.  There are lots of emails weekly but no live sessions I think. but I am ignoring it all thank god.

It's a shame we could not have a more unified national approach saying 'this is the platform'and this is what you are going to provide schools', rather than leaving each individual school to invent the wheel themselves.  I guess it's a result of the *marketplace*.  Seems absolutely ridiculous.  I wonder if other countries have had a stronger central message and unified approach?

In reply to deacondeacon:

Part 2 - Keyworker School

Keyworker school was mostly childcare but there is an element of learning which has become stronger as time has passed.  It feels very much to me like the kinds of things we run in Scouts (in fact I've seen exactly the same activities come back from hub school in a couple of cases) - fun and educational but not tied to a strict curriculum.  There has been plenty of 'educational TV' in there (including a minecraft recreation of the Leonardo Di Caprio Titanic movie hehe) but I also suspect the teachers have had some fun not having to tick box after box slaving towards some artificial government testing infrastructure for the first time in their careers.

After all schools reopened certain years Keyworker school has changed from being a school in a village a couple of miles away taking children from all over our Multi-academy Trust *vomits*, to the kids' usual school.  The educational element has grown as a result of the children all being from the same school so can be tied more closely to what the children out of school are doing (neither of mine are in the years that have gone back).  There's still plenty of fun activity though, particularly for the six year old.

In reply to deacondeacon:

Part 3

Tension between Keyworker School and Everyone Else.

This is *interesting*.

At first Keyworker School had very low numbers, say five or six children from each year group drawn from across a cohort of three or four schools some of which have more than one class in each year group.  Seems amazing to look back on that now!  A very low number of those who could take up a place due to being at risk/vulnerable were going which suprised everyone.

As the weeks passed more and more kids started showing up, when other year groups opened fully and key worker school changed from a central hub to a subset of every school the numbers rose sharply, perhaps because it was easier to access, or perhaps because perceptions about risk had changed?  Or perhaps because as the weeks progressed parents steadily gave up on home schooling?  Many more of the at risk/vulnerable kids now attending I think because it's easier for the parents in these families to go to the schools they know.

BUT half of the school site is now given over to the Keyworker School which limits how quickly the school can reopen to the other kids.  At the same time the Keyworker School is growing and growing.  In "Unexpected consequences of decisions taken early in the Pandemic #117" we have a situation where a two tier system has been created - families of keyworkers and with vulnerable kids are going to school, and have been in some form for the duration, while other families will not have had access to school for six months, and a major limiting factor on them getting back into school is that the school is being used for Keyworker School. 

I see lots of resentment ahead, why should I have been able to send my kids because my wife is NHS when a single parent facing exactly the same situation as I was can't send their kids just because they don't have an other half who is a Keyworker?

Wow sorry for the Trilogy of posts, but I guess I needed to get these thoughts out of my head!

In reply to girlymonkey: I'm not sure what you are saying here. The expectations are set by the government and enforced through LA targets and OFSTED so it is a feature of the English education system. I don't agree that all children, if left to their own devices, will be fine. That is not my experience in 20 years of state school teaching. If you want to go to a good university these days 3 As are the norm and for most young people hard work is required to achieve that. It is really important, in our current system, that children don't fall behind, especially when transitioning to high school. You might not like this but this is the system we work within. That said, primary schools don't have to drive the children so hard they take all the joy out of school. We certainly don't. We have very happy, confident children who are resilient and creative and not just factory produced children. 

In reply to deacondeacon:

Our daughter is 14 and her school has been excellent.  Work has been set from the outset, communication to parents has been excellent and positive, teachers have phoned us to check that it is going OK, house competitions are set weekly and they have just had a virtual sports day.

She has just chosen her options and they are doing live lessons online in their chosen subjects.

I wouldn't expect it to be quite so intense at primary age but I would be fuming if communications were negative or political.

Whilst I'm happy with our school there have been teachers shown on the news that have been so negative that I would not want them teaching our daughter. The sad thing is that I suspect that they have been put forward by the unions who then wonder why people complain about teachers.

In reply to girlymonkey:

This is fine for you and I'm pretty on board on a personal basis with being more fine and relaxed and not trying to be the best, sounds like my life after I started climbing in my mid 20s (though it did take time to unlearn that drive to succeed and always get high grades that I had learned in my childhood). But what you were saying is that because this worked for you, it's a good approach for young people in general, this is where I disagree. Most young people will not be able to attain A and B grades in their final exams without working and that will limit their options later on.

If you get good grades at school, it opens a lot of doors when you leave. It gives you the freedom to choose a lazy life or a high-achieving life or whatever else you want (within reason). If you get poor grades at school, a lot of the doors are closed to you, or, at the least, are much harder to open. Low grades cut down your options and mean there is a much higher chance you will end up stuck with a job you don't like because there doesn't seem to be anything else available to you.

I've worked my fair share of simple jobs with minimal entry qualifications (cutting grass, portering, photocopying, lifeguarding, etc.) and I remember being by-and-large content while I was doing them (except the portering), but knowing that I could move on and do something more challenging/interesting/life affirming/better paying/etc. whenever I chose was pretty key. There is a big difference between choosing to do something because you have choices and being forced to do something because you do not.

In reply to henwardian: Very well put.

In reply to girlymonkey:

The critical difference to me is between encouraging a child to be the best (bad) and encouraging them to do the best that they can reasonably do (good).

In reply to deacondeacon:  If it's any consolation if she lived in Scandianvia she wouldn't have started school I tihnk and if she had, any lessons will be cursory.  And they seem to do ok

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

Scandinavian children do better than English children and don’t start school until 7.  Girlymonkey is in Scotland where children don’t have the same curriculum. 

I’ve also been teaching for more than 20 years.  I’ve seen massive increases in the number of children with anxiety and mental health issues, self harming, eating disorders etc etc.  I’m all for having high expectations that every child achieve, but it has gone too far.  

Children need to learn but they also need time to play and be outdoors and just be. One thing I hope the virus will do is to give children a breathing space and the adults time to consider which of the many things we try to cram into their brains are actually important.  

In reply to girlymonkey:

I don't have kids and I'm not a teacher so have nothing to offer on here but this made me raise an eyebrow.

Surely there is a huge difference between having opportunities and not bothering and not having those opportunities at all?

In reply to marsbar:

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I challenged girly monkey on their assertion that primary school was not actually academic study.

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

It appears to be more academic than it used to. Frontal adverbs and algebra are just 2 of the many things I didn’t learn in primary school.  

In reply to blackmountainbiker:

I'm saying that if the school aren't providing work and the kid doesn't do well in SATS due to this then it is no concern at all for the parents. It's the school's problem. The kid is 6, she will be fine having some time doing her own thing and learning about things that interest her. A 6 year old will be learning all the time whether you teach them or not. I had friends over the other day in the garden with a 4 year old. In our time in the garden we discussed feeding habits of birds, evaporation, growing vegetables, the elements fire needs to burn, and how dogs communicate. Kids ask and as long as we answer, they will learn!

In reply to deacondeacon:

I have a 14 year old daughter. All I can say is: thank f*ck we're in France.

E

In reply to girlymonkey: you seem to miss my point. I began by pointing out that primary school isn't a child minding service in the way you suggested. You would, in fact, love our school. Our pre-school and reception children spend all day on Thursdays, whatever the weather, in Forest School and start their day with porridge cooked over a camp fire. The rest of the school spend a lot of time outside too.