Remote teaching and learning

AC Mack

Striker
Probably worth a thread of its own, considering the amount of parents and teachers we have on the board. I know it's being discussed in other threads, but that's alongside other aspects. It could be particularly useful for parents who aren't sure whether their school is providing the right sort of learning for their children. Teachers should hopefully be able to provide some experienced advice (from the inside looking out, so to speak).

Yesterday was manic for me. I was in school teaching all day as you would expect, but I had to get the lessons online for the vast majority of the children who weren't in. The good thing (for want of a better phrase) being that March to June last year had us much more prepared. I only had four pupils in my class, which was about what we expected. Our rota means I'm only in school Fridays, giving me most of the rest of the week to concentrate on my pupils at home. For comparison's sake, my partner in a different school is in on Wednesday afternoons, and all day Thursdays and Fridays. That seems a bit much to me, considering she will also be required to teach her whole class remotely on a daily basis.

I currently have about 24 people signed up on Seesaw, the others either haven't done it or aren't able to. This means work packs with hard copies of the online work will need to be prepared and sent home to certain families each week. I've got a couple more families on Seesaw who struggle due to having more than one child, but only one laptop to work from. This will be a problem for a lot of families. I've also had one parent asking if we'll be delivering 'live' lessons via zoom or google teams or whatever platforms are used. The answer as a school is no, at least for the moment. I think there's a possibility myself and the Year 5 teachers may provide this opportunity at some point, but it remains to be seen. A quick read of the forums suggests it's very mixed as to whether or not schools are providing this.

This morning I've marked all of yesterday's work, prepared and sent all of today's work, planned the work for the rest of the week so it is ready to be assigned on the given days, and marked the work the children have already completed for today. It's been fairly smooth going, however I've only had consistent replies from about ten of the children so far. Some of the others are in school as key workers, but not all. This afternoon I'll be creating the home learning packs so they are ready to be printed and distributed on Friday, and I'll be planning my lessons for the key worker children I'll be working with each Friday.

As an aside, it's just been announced that SATs are cancelled, which has a big effect on me and my class. I also see it has just been announced that children without laptops have been added to the 'vulnerable' list. The government need to be careful that we don't just end up with half the children back in school, completely negating the point of the lockdown.

This isn't meant to be a 'look at me I've got loads of work to do' post if that's how it sounds, I think it'll just be good to hear what people are up to and how they're feeling about things.
 


Probably worth a thread of its own, considering the amount of parents and teachers we have on the board. I know it's being discussed in other threads, but that's alongside other aspects. It could be particularly useful for parents who aren't sure whether their school is providing the right sort of learning for their children. Teachers should hopefully be able to provide some experienced advice (from the inside looking out, so to speak).

Yesterday was manic for me. I was in school teaching all day as you would expect, but I had to get the lessons online for the vast majority of the children who weren't in. The good thing (for want of a better phrase) being that March to June last year had us much more prepared. I only had four pupils in my class, which was about what we expected. Our rota means I'm only in school Fridays, giving me most of the rest of the week to concentrate on my pupils at home. For comparison's sake, my partner in a different school is in on Wednesday afternoons, and all day Thursdays and Fridays. That seems a bit much to me, considering she will also be required to teach her whole class remotely on a daily basis.

I currently have about 24 people signed up on Seesaw, the others either haven't done it or aren't able to. This means work packs with hard copies of the online work will need to be prepared and sent home to certain families each week. I've got a couple more families on Seesaw who struggle due to having more than one child, but only one laptop to work from. This will be a problem for a lot of families. I've also had one parent asking if we'll be delivering 'live' lessons via zoom or google teams or whatever platforms are used. The answer as a school is no, at least for the moment. I think there's a possibility myself and the Year 5 teachers may provide this opportunity at some point, but it remains to be seen. A quick read of the forums suggests it's very mixed as to whether or not schools are providing this.

This morning I've marked all of yesterday's work, prepared and sent all of today's work, planned the work for the rest of the week so it is ready to be assigned on the given days, and marked the work the children have already completed for today. It's been fairly smooth going, however I've only had consistent replies from about ten of the children so far. Some of the others are in school as key workers, but not all. This afternoon I'll be creating the home learning packs so they are ready to be printed and distributed on Friday, and I'll be planning my lessons for the key worker children I'll be working with each Friday.

As an aside, it's just been announced that SATs are cancelled, which has a big effect on me and my class. I also see it has just been announced that children without laptops have been added to the 'vulnerable' list. The government need to be careful that we don't just end up with half the children back in school, completely negating the point of the lockdown.

This isn't meant to be a 'look at me I've got loads of work to do' post if that's how it sounds, I think it'll just be good to hear what people are up to and how they're feeling about things.
Good luck mate. Up here (Scotland) our kids had already been given this week as an extra week (well few days as my son wasn't due back till today anyway). Not heard anything from the school yet but hopefully they'll be getting stuff set up. We are quite fortunate that every pupil in my sons school has been given an ipad (not sure if that's a council or national government initiative and was due to happen even before Covid appeared) and they've got access to various bits of software that they should get stuff through. See what next week brings!
 
Probably worth a thread of its own, considering the amount of parents and teachers we have on the board. I know it's being discussed in other threads, but that's alongside other aspects. It could be particularly useful for parents who aren't sure whether their school is providing the right sort of learning for their children. Teachers should hopefully be able to provide some experienced advice (from the inside looking out, so to speak).

Yesterday was manic for me. I was in school teaching all day as you would expect, but I had to get the lessons online for the vast majority of the children who weren't in. The good thing (for want of a better phrase) being that March to June last year had us much more prepared. I only had four pupils in my class, which was about what we expected. Our rota means I'm only in school Fridays, giving me most of the rest of the week to concentrate on my pupils at home. For comparison's sake, my partner in a different school is in on Wednesday afternoons, and all day Thursdays and Fridays. That seems a bit much to me, considering she will also be required to teach her whole class remotely on a daily basis.

I currently have about 24 people signed up on Seesaw, the others either haven't done it or aren't able to. This means work packs with hard copies of the online work will need to be prepared and sent home to certain families each week. I've got a couple more families on Seesaw who struggle due to having more than one child, but only one laptop to work from. This will be a problem for a lot of families. I've also had one parent asking if we'll be delivering 'live' lessons via zoom or google teams or whatever platforms are used. The answer as a school is no, at least for the moment. I think there's a possibility myself and the Year 5 teachers may provide this opportunity at some point, but it remains to be seen. A quick read of the forums suggests it's very mixed as to whether or not schools are providing this.

This morning I've marked all of yesterday's work, prepared and sent all of today's work, planned the work for the rest of the week so it is ready to be assigned on the given days, and marked the work the children have already completed for today. It's been fairly smooth going, however I've only had consistent replies from about ten of the children so far. Some of the others are in school as key workers, but not all. This afternoon I'll be creating the home learning packs so they are ready to be printed and distributed on Friday, and I'll be planning my lessons for the key worker children I'll be working with each Friday.

As an aside, it's just been announced that SATs are cancelled, which has a big effect on me and my class. I also see it has just been announced that children without laptops have been added to the 'vulnerable' list. The government need to be careful that we don't just end up with half the children back in school, completely negating the point of the lockdown.

This isn't meant to be a 'look at me I've got loads of work to do' post if that's how it sounds, I think it'll just be good to hear what people are up to and how they're feeling about things.

What was the thinking behind SeeSaw. Its decent for adding work but actually submitting it is a joke. Im either having to get the kids to write freehand using a mouse or adding text boxes everywhere. Other option is taking photos of a seperate sheet and emailing it to add as an attachment.
 
Probably worth a thread of its own, considering the amount of parents and teachers we have on the board. I know it's being discussed in other threads, but that's alongside other aspects. It could be particularly useful for parents who aren't sure whether their school is providing the right sort of learning for their children. Teachers should hopefully be able to provide some experienced advice (from the inside looking out, so to speak).

Yesterday was manic for me. I was in school teaching all day as you would expect, but I had to get the lessons online for the vast majority of the children who weren't in. The good thing (for want of a better phrase) being that March to June last year had us much more prepared. I only had four pupils in my class, which was about what we expected. Our rota means I'm only in school Fridays, giving me most of the rest of the week to concentrate on my pupils at home. For comparison's sake, my partner in a different school is in on Wednesday afternoons, and all day Thursdays and Fridays. That seems a bit much to me, considering she will also be required to teach her whole class remotely on a daily basis.

I currently have about 24 people signed up on Seesaw, the others either haven't done it or aren't able to. This means work packs with hard copies of the online work will need to be prepared and sent home to certain families each week. I've got a couple more families on Seesaw who struggle due to having more than one child, but only one laptop to work from. This will be a problem for a lot of families. I've also had one parent asking if we'll be delivering 'live' lessons via zoom or google teams or whatever platforms are used. The answer as a school is no, at least for the moment. I think there's a possibility myself and the Year 5 teachers may provide this opportunity at some point, but it remains to be seen. A quick read of the forums suggests it's very mixed as to whether or not schools are providing this.

This morning I've marked all of yesterday's work, prepared and sent all of today's work, planned the work for the rest of the week so it is ready to be assigned on the given days, and marked the work the children have already completed for today. It's been fairly smooth going, however I've only had consistent replies from about ten of the children so far. Some of the others are in school as key workers, but not all. This afternoon I'll be creating the home learning packs so they are ready to be printed and distributed on Friday, and I'll be planning my lessons for the key worker children I'll be working with each Friday.

As an aside, it's just been announced that SATs are cancelled, which has a big effect on me and my class. I also see it has just been announced that children without laptops have been added to the 'vulnerable' list. The government need to be careful that we don't just end up with half the children back in school, completely negating the point of the lockdown.

This isn't meant to be a 'look at me I've got loads of work to do' post if that's how it sounds, I think it'll just be good to hear what people are up to and how they're feeling about things.
I think it's a 'needs must' situation where everyone has to muck in in every walk of life. Online learning and parents teaching isn't ideal, but it's necessary given the crisis. I'm sick and tired of teachers (and teacher unions) moaning about it to be honest. (Not saying you are moaning, just making an general point)

Feels as though Teachers are the only industry who have moaned the whole way through this pandemic. I have to run my business from home whilst schooling 2 kids (albeit the missus does 60% of it). It's not ideal, it's hard, but it's necessary and it's temporary. None of us are working in an ideal situation and our lives are affected in so many ways, but I do feel that if people spent less time moaning and more time just getting on with it then things would work a lot better

Tin hat on
What was the thinking behind SeeSaw. Its decent for adding work but actually submitting it is a joke. Im either having to get the kids to write freehand using a mouse or adding text boxes everywhere. Other option is taking photos of a separate sheet and emailing it to add as an attachment.
My youngest does everything in word, saves it as a pdf and uploads to seesaw. Made a massive mistake buying a chromebook though, nowhere near as good as a normal windows laptop
 
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Picked up my pack and it contains several Internet printed sheets and 3 revision guides. Feels like the school are taking the piss to be perfectly honest. I’m not going to set a 7 year old away on a revision guide for 6 hours a day and I cannot commit too much time to independent learning as I do have a job to do myself. Thought the school were expected by government to provide work plans and actual work and things and to remotely teach the kids, not peddle everything onto the parents while sitting at home with their feet up...
 
I think it's a 'needs must' situation where everyone has to muck in in every walk of life. Online learning and parents teaching isn't ideal, but it's necessary given the crisis. I'm sick and tired of teachers (and teacher unions) moaning about it to be honest. (Not saying you are moaning, just making an general point)

Feels as though Teachers are the only industry who have moaned the whole way through this pandemic. I have to run my business from home whilst schooling 2 kids (albeit the missus does 60% of it). It's not ideal, it's hard, but it's necessary and it's temporary. None of us are working in an ideal situation and our lives are affected in so many ways, but I do feel that if people spent less time moaning and more time just getting on with it then things would work a lot better

Tin hat on

My youngest does everything in word, saves it as a pdf and uploads to seesaw. Made a massive mistake buying a chromebook though, nowhere near as good as a normal windows laptop

My 10 year old could probs do that but not my 7 year old. Having to help them all out and its a struggle with clunky software
 
What was the thinking behind SeeSaw. Its decent for adding work but actually submitting it is a joke. Im either having to get the kids to write freehand using a mouse or adding text boxes everywhere. Other option is taking photos of a seperate sheet and emailing it to add as an attachment.

We trialled Seesaw and Google Classroom and for a primary school, Seesaw seemed the best bet. The children needed individual school email addresses for Google Classroom, for a start.

I've no idea about submitting work but as you say, sharing it is fairly straightforward once you get used to it. I have to convert everything into a PDF and if I want to take photo of something, I need to do it on my phone and then send it through the phone app. Both are a bit time consuming, but it's not the end of the world.

Does the teacher add a 'note' template when they share a piece of work? That's what I do, and I find the majority of children write on there. Others do what you say and take a photo and upload it.
 
My 10 year old could probs do that but not my 7 year old. Having to help them all out and its a struggle with clunky software
Yeah, it's not the best. Decent considering the shite situation we are now in (again). Hopefully this pandemic will focus some minds about how education can modernise - even google could be utilised - shared work on google drives, google forms for work/feedback/marking, hangouts for lessons or one on one assistance - all of which is free. The education industry can't say it's been caugt by surprise by this.
 
I think it's a 'needs must' situation where everyone has to muck in in every walk of life. Online learning and parents teaching isn't ideal, but it's necessary given the crisis. I'm sick and tired of teachers (and teacher unions) moaning about it to be honest. (Not saying you are moaning, just making an general point)

Feels as though Teachers are the only industry who have moaned the whole way through this pandemic. I have to run my business from home whilst schooling 2 kids (albeit the missus does 60% of it). It's not ideal, it's hard, but it's necessary and it's temporary. None of us are working in an ideal situation and our lives are affected in so many ways, but I do feel that if people spent less time moaning and more time just getting on with it then things would work a lot better

Tin hat on

Where are all these teachers moaning about online learning?
 
Yeah, it's not the best. Decent considering the shite situation we are now in (again). Hopefully this pandemic will focus some minds about how education can modernise - even google could be utilised - shared work on google drives, google forms for work/feedback/marking, hangouts for lessons or one on one assistance - all of which is free. The education industry can't say it's been caugt by surprise by this.
As you mention there’s plenty of free resources out there so I don’t buy this “we don’t have the resource” argument. And this isn’t exactly out of nowhere, so teachers have surely been contingency planning for this for months? Some certainly have given the quality of work that they’ve brought out, so not sure why our schools failing so bad at it tbh
 
Picked up my pack and it contains several Internet printed sheets and 3 revision guides. Feels like the school are taking the piss to be perfectly honest. I’m not going to set a 7 year old away on a revision guide for 6 hours a day and I cannot commit too much time to independent learning as I do have a job to do myself. Thought the school were expected by government to provide work plans and actual work and things and to remotely teach the kids, not peddle everything onto the parents while sitting at home with their feet up...

Do they not have an online platform?
 
We trialled Seesaw and Google Classroom and for a primary school, Seesaw seemed the best bet. The children needed individual school email addresses for Google Classroom, for a start.

I've no idea about submitting work but as you say, sharing it is fairly straightforward once you get used to it. I have to convert everything into a PDF and if I want to take photo of something, I need to do it on my phone and then send it through the phone app. Both are a bit time consuming, but it's not the end of the world.

Does the teacher add a 'note' template when they share a piece of work? That's what I do, and I find the majority of children write on there. Others do what you say and take a photo and upload it.

Yeah they add notes. Its a decent bit of software. Better than Class Charts last time.

Other issuenis ive got 3 kids 3 accounts but can only log in one at a time on my phone. Would make things better for taking photos and sending if all on one device.

Im trying to set up a printer as I think worksheets would be more effective done on paper then photo taken.

Also bought a stylus for the tablet. As weve got one laptop between three and two tablets.
 
Do they not have an online platform?
Only thing they use is class dojo, which is used as nothing more than a text service by the school tbh. I know it has other functionality, but this isn’t being utilised at all and hasn’t since last March. It’s an utter shambles. I can’t get over the difference between some schools and others in this
 
Where are all these teachers moaning about online learning?
Social media, online media, TV, The news, my own circle of friends and family.

Before Xmas, when mass testing was proposed/announced for secondary schooling, the unions were up in arms about the "lack of notice" and "how much work would be involved"

It feels as though the rest of us are mucking in and making do, the teachers (or more accurately, their unions) are demanding everything is perfect before they are prepared to engage. It's not unusual in a heavily unionised environment
 
Gotta be honest, i was expecting our school to be hinting at at least some online f2f maybe, but today we got a pack with a shit load of work in for a 9 Yr old to work through and us help when we can.
All those In school are getting full lessons each day.
I know its hard, but there has to be a balance
Only thing they use is class dojo, which is used as nothing more than a text service by the school tbh. I know it has other functionality, but this isn’t being utilised at all and hasn’t since last March. It’s an utter shambles. I can’t get over the difference between some schools and others in this
Ours are using dojo to send and allow submission of some work. But its stop gaps tbh. Just spent time doing times tables with her. But its not the best
 
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Only thing they use is class dojo, which is used as nothing more than a text service by the school tbh. I know it has other functionality, but this isn’t being utilised at all and hasn’t since last March. It’s an utter shambles. I can’t get over the difference between some schools and others in this

That's poor. We stopped using class dojo due to GDPR a couple of years ago.
Social media, online media, TV, The news, my own circle of friends and family.

Before Xmas, when mass testing was proposed/announced for secondary schooling, the unions were up in arms about the "lack of notice" and "how much work would be involved"

It feels as though the rest of us are mucking in and making do, the teachers (or more accurately, their unions) are demanding everything is perfect before they are prepared to engage. It's not unusual in a heavily unionised environment

You've linked two articles about Covid testing. Nothing to do with remote learning.
Gotta be honest, i was expecting our school to be hinting at at least some online f2f maybe, but today we got a pack with a shit load of work in for a 9 Yr old to work through and us help when we can.
All those In school are getting full lessons each day.
I know its hard, but there has to be a balance

Ours are using dojo to send and allow submission of some work. But its stop gaps tbh. Just spent time doing times tables with her. But its not the best

They should be providing daily lessons, not a pack that can be used over a period of time (unless you can't access remote learning, in which case there isn't much alternative).
 
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You've linked two articles about Covid testing. Nothing to do with remote learning.
And? I'm talking about the overall attitude of the education industry towards toe trials that covid-19 has presented. From my experience, they have been the least flexible of all of them. Probably because Teachers refuse to believe anyone can tell them what to do.
 
The bairn is 13 and in Year 9, so pretty much gets on with it herself (apart from me nagging her to get out of bed on a morning!)

She's on Teams. The school has been off and on it as different bubbles had to isolate last year, so they're all used to it now. It seems to be working really well and she's managing fine. They're following the regular timetable and having lessons as they would be if they were in school. The only thing that isn't being taught online is PE. They have a free period then but are encouraged to do something from home.

She would have been doing a practical in food tech of cooking an evening meal on a budget. They've asked if possible if they could cook something at home but it's not compulsory. She likes cooking though so she's going to do that one night.

They've said if we need more blank exercise books or printed booklets etc., if they haven't got a printer, they'll be doing some drop in sessions so we can pick supplies up from school.

I'm impressed with it.
 
That's poor. We stopped using class dojo due to GDPR a couple of years ago.


You've linked two articles about Covid testing. Nothing to do with remote learning.


They should be providing daily lessons, not a pack that can be used over a period of time (unless you can't access remote learning, in which case there isn't much alternative).
i guess its a pack with each day's work in. for the bairn (and us when we can) to work through. but nothing about 'daily' or even 'a hour here and there' where the teachers interact with the bairn.

weve got all the remote ability under the sun, the mrs and i have been wfh since march. we have the tools (tablets, laptops etc) but nothing from school to say theyll be doing it
 

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