Good news for school children.

Kingdom Bhoy said:
Exactly these are unprecedented times we live in.

Teachers are under a lot of pressure whilst facing difficult challenges and their efforts can be undervalued by some people.
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Agree with you there. Our lass's school has had cases among the staff and kids now, members of staff unable to come to work for one reason or another and a few bubbles isolating. The staff left are stressed to fuck trying to keep things going.
 


My Granddaughter is off school after a classmate tested positive, she has home learning each day, what a difference from earlier in the year, this teacher holds 2 live video meetings, she sets maths and English lessons, the Teacher provided timetables and a way for the kids to submit the work, a big improvement from the original lockdown.
 
wisemensaysteve said:
My Granddaughter is off school after a classmate tested positive, she has home learning each day, what a difference from earlier in the year, this teacher holds 2 live video meetings, she sets maths and English lessons, the Teacher provided timetables and a way for the kids to submit the work, a big improvement from the original lockdown.
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Firstly, that's great to hear and fantastic that you're happy with the way in which the learning is being delivered. However, it's a worry that that wasn't happening during the first lockdown, when all schools were essentially shut to most pupils. It's also a surprise in many ways that it's worked that way around and not the other way around. What platform is the school/teacher using?

From a personal perspective, I planned, set and marked work every day on Seesaw during the first lockdown, and interacted with the children when possible. This year, we've not had any school issues so we haven't had to use Seesaw much; it's just been a case of setting homework, general notifications and a few parents have communicated privately with me about their child.
 
safccfas said:
Contact with the kids for a start. Start the day with a call via zoom, teams or good old fashioned telephone. Talk them through the work, let the kids do the work and then check back in with them a few hours later to mark it and take them through their learnings. Repeat the process in the afternoon. Teachers calls could be done in groups to make it viable.
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IF the school is not making daily contact with you then that's really poor. I'm currently teaching from home as our entire site is currently closed for a fortnight. I've just finished PE done remotely using my school ipad and google classroom. I've done 3 lessons a day since Monday and will continue to do 3 lessons a day until next Thursday. Alongside our usual job of planning and preparing the work and pitching it at the right areas whilst following the curriculum, we've also had the inevitable task of supporting parents/carers from home with technology. Our school has a full list of activities every day from 9 until 5 whether they are lessons taught over GC between 9 and 3 or the option to sign in and part take in cooking or wellbeing sessions after school hosted by staff outside of the normal school day.

We host our lessons regardless of how many sign in and we're not in a position to "force" parents/carers to drop everything and support from home so work books have been purchased and sent with instructions on which tasks to complete each day if they cant access our video calls. The work is uploaded after our video calls and some students are completing them at a time convenient (after 5pm normally) which is also fine. If they can't get onto video call, I phone them daily for a general chat.

We're grafting harder now than we would in a normal situation but tbh I'm enjoying it. Something a bit different.
 
AC Mack said:
Firstly, that's great to hear and fantastic that you're happy with the way in which the learning is being delivered. However, it's a worry that that wasn't happening during the first lockdown, when all schools were essentially shut to most pupils. It's also a surprise in many ways that it's worked that way around and not the other way around. What platform is the school/teacher using?

From a personal perspective, I planned, set and marked work every day on Seesaw during the first lockdown, and interacted with the children when possible. This year, we've not had any school issues so we haven't had to use Seesaw much; it's just been a case of setting homework, general notifications and a few parents have communicated privately with me about their child.
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The difference is the new Teacher, first lockdown all that the little-un got was a couple of links to websites, often her submitted work wasn't even checked, the new teacher uses Microsoft Teams, she sets questions on that, the kids can complete the tasks while having the meeting, she then sets work to be done after the meeting and everything we have submitted is checked and praised, little one is 5 she knows how to mute, unmute, turn on and off video/sound and how to raise a hand, all learnt in just over a week.
 
wisemensaysteve said:
My Granddaughter is off school after a classmate tested positive, she has home learning each day, what a difference from earlier in the year, this teacher holds 2 live video meetings, she sets maths and English lessons, the Teacher provided timetables and a way for the kids to submit the work, a big improvement from the original lockdown.
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Similar situation for my daughter. She is sticking to her time table, but goes from lesson to lesson on MS Teams. I seem to be going from meeting to meeting to MS Teams, so we lead a very similar life now.
 
If there was any plans to shut schools en massse 2 weeks before Xmas you'd have thought the whispers would have started from government sources. Isnt the type of thing you can drop on people with a few days notice
 
redandwhiterob said:
If there was any plans to shut schools en massse 2 weeks before Xmas you'd have thought the whispers would have started from government sources. Isnt the type of thing you can drop on people with a few days notice
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look out piano said:
Where's that come from rob - are there murmurings this could happen ?
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Boris was asked outright yesterday if schools would be closing early for Christmas to give kids chance to isolate before visiting relatives, he said they have absolutely no plans at all to do this.
 
Kevsgreat said:
Agree with you there. Our lass's school has had cases among the staff and kids now, members of staff unable to come to work for one reason or another and a few bubbles isolating. The staff left are stressed to fuck trying to keep things going.
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Have to say I’ve never seen my wife as stressed as she has been since September in all her years teaching, even for Ofsted inspections. Would love her to find a different career.
 
Our first one isolating now. Nearly got to Christmas. Luckily its the middle one who is best at doing work by herself and takes things in quickly.

Not ideal but could be a lot worse.

From next Friday any bubbles sent home will miss Christmas Day😬
 
AC Mack said:
I had three children self-isolating this week in my class. We've still not had one positive case throughout school.
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Are you north-eastern based mate? Primary or secondary? There have been loads of positive cases at our secondary. There were also so many positive cases amongst staff at a local primary school that it has had to shut for 2 weeks with all learning online.
The situation of some schools being lucky enough to avoid closure makes the government's insistence that exams should go ahead a ridiculous one. Most of our year 11 have been out of school for 5 weeks whereas the year 11 of school x in town y have not been out at all. It's all very well giving kids information on which topic areas may come up but there are going to be two papers for each GCSE and A-Level exam this summer - the so called contingency papers. Students will therefore need to prepare for the topics in both which may equate to having to prepare for best part of the syllabus anyway.
The cynic in me would argue that the government are fully aware that the independent sector where online lessons were the norm throughout lockdown 1 in the likes of leafy Surrey or Herts where the MPs children will be studying are massively set to score from this situation. It's not a level playing field in the first place but next year's exams will be even more lopsided in their favour whereas kids from the likes of Sunderland, South Tyneside, inner city Manchester etc are left high and dry.
 

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