FFS holiday in jeopardy

I have experience of two schools in the pandemic and their responses have both been woeful

two telephone calls from teachers to ‘check in’

other than that - schoolwork emailed to us with substandard instructions and expected to be able to teach 3 kids at the same time as working 5am til 7pm every day. None of it marked, no feedback, nothing.

no innovation, no zoom, no teams, no effort to try and educate the kids in some way shape or form. Found it very strange.

At the same time I have various teacher friends posting photos of themselves running, gardening and generally relaxing on Instagram. I’m sure this isn’t a fair reflection of the whole education system, but my experience has been very, very poor.

 

I can't comment on the rest as I appreciate that every school (and probably teacher) has approached the whole thing differently and our school's provision couldn't have been more different. This bit made me laugh though, what do you want a teacher to do about the fact that you decided to have 3 kids and the law says they're not allowed into school? They can't come and push one back in. They also can't go phoning up the parent's employers and asking if they can work less hours for a bit. It's your job that you took, your choices aren't the responsibility of your kids' teacher, they're not able to magically know that you work 5am til 7pm every day and be able to do anything about it.

 

I think you’re misunderstanding my point.

It isn’t the school’s responsibility to change my hours and so on (it’s fewer, not less, by the way!).

I was simply referring to my own personal situation to illuminate the circumstances that many people have found themselves in, and that the lack of support from the education authority or schools or whichever entity takes responsibility, has been severely lacking.

What I would like a teacher ( or those that instruct them) to do is the following:-

Communicate with the children each week
Mark their work
Try and utilise technology / innovate

As my original post I have seen very little evidence of this. Please don’t read my post as personal criticism, it most certainly isn’t, my point is that the education sector seems to have responded really slowly and poorly in my experience (and numerous other people I have spoken to) compared to other sectors.

 

The attitude of some schools has been downright disgusting. We had a nightmare with my 6 year old's school. My wife is a key worker but I'm not, anyway we've both continued to work full time throughout the pandemic and had a few struggles trying to juggle things (we also have a 2 year old), therefore we made enquiries with my eldest's school to see if they could take him back just a a couple of day per week. They refused on the basis that only my wife is a key worker. We then made contact with the DFE and Local Authority who told us the school was in the wrong and that if one parent is a key worker then they should be trying to accommodate those children. The school then continued to make things very awkward but eventually due to intervention from the Local Authority agreed to take him back 2 days per week.

 

same experience mate. I’m sure my wife would have preferred some proper support from our education authority rather than the govt instructing people to clap on their doorstep for her.

 

I think that when we arrive back at Heathrow on Wednesday there'll be form filling, on the lines of "Where've you been; where do you live? " and there'll be the prospect of a visit within 14 days to ensure you've complied.

 

My next door neighbour teaches in a school in Chelsea. He tells me that from his experience of work provided online, 60% of their students have done NOTHING since mid March. Worrying...

 

Due to my children's disabilities I have two primary aged children in different schools. The response of these 2 schools were like night and day.
One was excellent and made me feel the teachers actually genuinely care about my child. They went beyond what I would see as a reasonable response and I have nothing but admiration and respect for the staff.
The other seemed to adopt the policy, "we're shut, here's some work, bye"

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, @Chef Tyke, but are you sure about that? I've found myself confidently on the wrong side of the rules here a few times.

"because English likes to make things difficult, there are exceptions. If the countable noun refers to an amount of time, distance, or money, you’ll want to use “less,” not “fewer.” For instance, you would say “The concert lasted less than two hours,” not “…fewer than two hours,” even though “hours” is technically a countable noun."
https://www.rd.com/article/difference-between-less-and-fewer/

However, as the article goes on to say, "This is because this sentence refers to “two hours” as a lump sum of time, not as individual hours" and I'm not sure that applies in this case. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether "hours" in the sense of scheduled working is strictly an amount of time, although in that case it might not be a countable noun in that sense either. I don't think "hours" as in "What are your opening hours?" would be a countable noun, for example, and it's not a great leap from there to "working hours".

 

Sorry but all these people moaning about the decision,ive no sympathy.They knew this was possible and any body who wants to wear a mask for 12hrs a day in 80 degree temps your welcome.

 

It was more than 60% where I work.

 

The school time lost because of the pandemic could harm the UK economy for the next 65 years, research published by the Royal Society suggests.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53514564

 

The fact that Grant Shapps is stuck in Spain shows what a mess of the whole thing the PM has made of it. A decision based on transport has been made without the guy supposedly in charge of transport being told about it first. He only went there yesterday morning, so you'd think Boris would have gave him the heads up to not travel to Spain.

 

Be careful,

It will be snowdrops POR!!!


as you know this govt haven't got a clue and no one is checking really

 

Shapps can't even get any sympathy off Raab who's blatantly laughing at him.

 

Whilst the whole thing is shambolic and no doubt you would be very unlikely to actually get a follow up visit, I am in favour of the principle of re-applying the quarantine regs where necessary and have no sympathy for people caught out by it. If you go abroad this year, you must know it's a possibility that this might happen

Ultimately, I would much prefer for us to apply these restrictions and keep a resurgence out of this country than make sure that people can go on hols with no restrictions. One is more important than the other.

Having lost 2 holidays already this year to the bloody situation, I have a week booked off in mid September. I am keeping an eye on things with a possibility that we book at very short notice. But my wife isn't that keen so it probably won't happen. She would rather spend the money on doing the garden.

Even if we do get away, I won't moan if we get caught out in the same way with a re-imposed quarantine. Them's the risks.

 

"We're shut,we're sat at home on full pay - happy days !!" Why wouldn't they put barriers in from of getting the country back to school. Raised this a couple of months ago and ( as usual for me sometimes) was rounded on and asked why I'm having a go at teachers, seems many others have had first hand experience of the reasons why. While those furloughed have been on reduced income the teachers are getting full pay, and lets not forget who's paying for it.

 

People furloughed are not allowed to do any work whatsoever though. I know I don’t know every school but there’s not a chance that teachers haven’t done literally anything. So really, they’re getting paid an extra 20% of their wage compared to those who are furloughed (and some who are furloughed had their wages topped up).

 

Have full paid teachers honestly been working full time through all of this though? I'm not saying they haven't but I know my sister's kids haven't had any contact from the school at all apart from a weekly email with work on it.