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Re-opening Schools?

Edie said:
Are you able to read this post, and regardless of whether you agree or not, recognise that it contains suggestions on how I think education needs to change?



I have also made it clear that I wish to get rid of performance driven league tables. Questioned whether we should abolish private schools. Argued that state schooling should aim to deliver Cultural Capital as private schools do. And stated repeatedly that parents of state schools- including, in fact especially, of failing state schools- have the right to criticise them.

Yet you ask me what do I want to happen? I’ve told you. You just can’t hear. Why is that?
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But you want things that cannot happen. You want exam results to increase across the board, when that is impossible. You want schools to take responsibility for and fix, presumably by magic, a nepotistic and corrupt social class system; as if it's arbitrary cultural signifiers that clear a path for the privileged and not, you know, actual privilege.
 
Strongly feel this should all be happening in another thread, but I've a question for Edie - if you could afford it, would you send your kids to private school?
 
You don’t obtain cultural capital by taking kids to the theatre or a gallery once a year. It’s more complicated than that. It’s the contacts you have, the community around you, the opportunities you have at home as well as at school. And again, you need money to do that with. My old school has talks from prominent women, science, law, whatever. Who do you think pays for these women to come and speak? It’s not free. And it’s about what society values as ‘culture’ - working class communities have culture, but it is not promoted, valued, and it is not their stories which are told. Or if they are told, they are told by those of us with no lived experience of it, so it is very much done ‘to’.
 
Edie said:
My son goes to one of the bottom five state schools (thanks for highlighting that Yorkshire Evening Post) in Leeds, a large industrial city in the North of England disproportionally hit by covid, at the junction of two socially deprived estates where there is significant food poverty.
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Is it an academy?

I ask because academies offer an extra layer of mismanagement potential, but also new opportunities to shame them into being slightly less shit, by attacking the academy publicly. Especially if its part of an academy chain.
 
elbows said:
Is it an academy?

I ask because academies offer an extra layer of mismanagement potential, but also new opportunities to shame them into being slightly less shit, by attacking the academy publicly. Especially if its part of an academy chain.
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I just checked and all five of the bottom performing state schools in Leeds are academies.
 
purenarcotic said:
You don’t obtain cultural capital by taking kids to the theatre or a gallery once a year. It’s more complicated than that. It’s the contacts you have, the community around you, the opportunities you have at home as well as at school. And again, you need money to do that with. My old school has talks from prominent women, science, law, whatever. Who do you think pays for these women to come and speak? It’s not free. And it’s about what society values as ‘culture’ - working class communities have culture, but it is not promoted, valued, and it is not their stories which are told. Or if they are told, they are told by those of us with no lived experience of it, so it is very much done ‘to’.
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You have not answered my question. You have deliberately ignored it.

Again, I’ve asked you whether you acknowledge that I have indeed made suggestions, whether or not you agree with them, and asked you why you couldn’t hear that.

I’m not interested in your excuses about why state kids aren’t allowed what private kids have.
 
maomao said:
I just checked and all five of the bottom performing state schools in Leeds are academies.
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Oops tell a lie it’s number X on the shit list of 10 this year, we’ve made progress.

(Edit to replace with X)
www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

The 10 lowest-performing schools in Leeds for GCSE results revealed by government figures

The revised GCSE results of every state school in Leeds - after a period where schools can request a change in data - have been released by the Department of Education.
www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk
.
 
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Edie said:
You have not answered my question. You have deliberately ignored it.

Again, I’ve asked you whether you acknowledge that I have indeed made suggestions, whether or not you agree with them, and asked you why you couldn’t hear that.

I’m not interested in your excuses about why state kids aren’t allowed what private kids have.
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Yes, I have seen your suggestions. They can’t work, because of the structures that keep everything in place. You want all kids to have great opportunities but don’t seem to recognise that can’t happen until all sorts of structural changes take place. On an individual level, I’m sure there are things your school could do differently. I’ve worked in many tens of schools, I have seen all sorts of things. I’m not blind to poor practice and poor attitude. But as a system, it’s designed for kids to be shat on depending where they are from. If you don’t like that, looking at the private school model is not remotely the way forward. Because it is precisely that model which promotes what you dislike.
 
Also, given you’ve already said that the private school your son was in wasn’t exactly chuffed with his behaviour, I’m unclear how you then jump to saying that if schools just had better expectations of the kids, it would automatically make a big difference. 😕
 
Part of the issue with lockdown education in schools with a lot of kids in poverty is that a huge number of kids couldn’t access online teaching, through lack of computers and internet.

We also experienced issues across all income levels of families who dropped off the map (some went abroad to be with family during lockdown, others just never answered the phone), some families were dealing with bereavement, others became angry with any attempt to check up on why work wasn’t being done because they felt strongly that education wasn’t going to continue until schools reopened...

We were being told conflicting things about how much emphasis we should put on the work we did set: if only some of the kids were able to do it, we couldn’t cover any important new material.

On top of that, Lambeth, for very good child protection reasons that nevertheless didn’t seem to apply anywhere else, banned zoom/meets/teams teaching completely.

And so I spent the summer term working long stressful hours without being able to keep on top of each student’s progress anywhere near as well as normal.

I don’t know what happened to @Edie’s son’s maths teacher. It sounds bad, but I don’t know if she was trying to teach while having sole care of two or three preschool kids, or if she or one of her kids was dealing with MH issues or domestic assault or bereavement or financial troubles and housing insecurity- or any one of the number of things we know made it so that a stack of our students and their parents weren’t able to do their best over lockdown. Some people had dreadful lockdowns, and some of those will have been teachers.

It also sounds like the school isn’t being managed very well. Targets are generated in year six, and that happens nationally. Teachers hate these targets, but schools often stop teachers being able to edit them because although they’re meaningless they’re the metric the school is judged on. If teachers can edit them, they might edit them downward which would stop the school hitting its progress goal over all - but someone should have spotted that your son’s Ict target was now meaningless, and changed it to a 9. They haven’t, and that’s a management failure.
 
spanglechick said:
Part of the issue with lockdown education in schools with a lot of kids in poverty is that a huge number of kids couldn’t access online teaching, through lack of computers and internet.

We also experienced issues across all income levels of families who dropped off the map (some went abroad to be with family during lockdown, others just never answered the phone), some families were dealing with bereavement, others became angry with any attempt to check up on why work wasn’t being done because they felt strongly that education wasn’t going to continue until schools reopened...

We were being told conflicting things about how much emphasis we should put on the work we did set: if only some of the kids were able to do it, we couldn’t cover any important new material.

On top of that, Lambeth, for very good child protection reasons that nevertheless didn’t seem to apply anywhere else, banned zoom/meets/teams teaching completely.

And so I spent the summer term working long stressful hours without being able to keep on top of each student’s progress anywhere near as well as normal.

I don’t know what happened to @Edie’s son’s maths teacher. It sounds bad, but I don’t know if she was trying to teach while having sole care of two or three preschool kids, or if she or one of her kids was dealing with MH issues or domestic assault or bereavement or financial troubles and housing insecurity- or any one of the number of things we know made it so that a stack of our students and their parents weren’t able to do their best over lockdown. Some people had dreadful lockdowns, and some of those will have been teachers.

It also sounds like the school isn’t being managed very well. Targets are generated in year six, and that happens nationally. Teachers hate these targets, but schools often stop teachers being able to edit them because although they’re meaningless they’re the metric the school is judged on. If teachers can edit them, they might edit them downward which would stop the school hitting its progress goal over all - but someone should have spotted that your son’s Ict target was now meaningless, and changed it to a 9. They haven’t, and that’s a management failure.
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Absolutely. Which is why failure of leadership and management was number ONE on my list of criticisms. Something purenarcotic et al are completely unable to recognise, even see, as it doesn’t fit with their politics.
 
One of my kid's teachers was fairly awol during lockdown and it was annoying. I do realise he probably had mental health stuff going on and was also trying to home school his own kids which of course didn't help, but from my kid's perspective it wasn't great. I spoke to the school at the time about him not doing the minimum.

Neither of mine had any live lessons during lockdown but I'm glad about that. We're not even living in poverty but there's no way we could have facilitated it - we were both working, have a younger child, one child needed supervision to do live lessons, we don't have enough devices etc. Their online schooling was videos and worksheets and nothing was marked so much as just commented on, but I think that was fine really under the circumstances. We didn't have the same experience as a private school because it wasn't possible.
My kids were ok during lockdown but I know a fairly sizeable proportion of children at their school did not so much as pick up a book from March til September. That isn't the school's fault though, it was due to a pandemic + the families difficult home situations.

The data obsession is damaging and pointless and I doubt you'll find a teacher who loves it either. Last week I had to submit attainment data to the LA for 2 year olds that categorised them as "on target" or above/below :facepalm:
 
Anyway I’ve said my bit. You lot continue on with your shamefully low expectations for state school kids and your excuses about why it can’t be better.
 
Thora said:
We're not even living in poverty but there's no way we could have facilitated it - we were both working, have a younger child, one child needed supervision to do live lessons, we don't have enough devices etc.
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and this is also not uncommon - I had one of my tutees ask if I could get her a school computer (which we are struggling to get). I was a bit surprised because I think her family is fairly well-off but she is one of 3 siblings and both parents are working from home. They don't have 5 computers that can all be used at the same time.

We had the same issue at the start of lockdown with our kids and even for me. I didn't have a computer to work with from home, so we had to recondition an old one that we had lying around so I could teach remotely. I have a chromebook but really I needed a full computer/laptop - and even now what I'm working with is a bit hooky.

Gaijinboy, who works for a private company, on the other hand was given a desk, 2 screens, a new computer chair, keyboard, mouse etc etc. His office looks amazing. I've got a secondhand laptop on a tiny desk.
 
Actually on the school reports. All the schools I have worked at have had drop down menu reports. My current school is the first I've worked at where we're allowed to write reports in our own words. I prefer this personally as I find it frustrating and near-impossible to categorise each child from a selection of pre-prepared sentences. However, it is very time-consuming - not just for me, but it means that we have members of staff whose job it is to proof-read all the reports to make sure that there are no typos/correct names are used etc. Teachers are honestly drowning with workload.

I had a man come in from the City - he'd worked in a high-pressure City job almost all his working life and had made a lot of money so jacked it in to do something more rewarding. I found him in his second week of teacher training in tears by the photocopy machine. It really is insane. Once you have lots of experience it does get easier but for a good number of years it's really really very hard indeed. There are a lot of casualties.

It doesn't help when we read so much negative stuff about ourselves in the press either.
 
gaijingirl said:
and this is also not uncommon - I had one of my tutees ask if I could get her a school computer (which we are struggling to get). I was a bit surprised because I think her family is fairly well-off but she is one of 3 siblings and both parents are working from home. They don't have 5 computers that can all be used at the same time.

We had the same issue at the start of lockdown with our kids and even for me. I didn't have a computer to work with from home, so we had to recondition an old one that we had lying around so I could teach remotely. I have a chromebook but really I needed a full computer/laptop - and even now what I'm working with is a bit hooky.

Gaijinboy, who works for a private company, on the other hand was given a desk, 2 screens, a new computer chair, keyboard, mouse etc etc. His office looks amazing. I've got a secondhand laptop on a tiny desk.
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And the sheer number of different platforms being used and not all will work on a chromebook/phone/desktop and some you need to scan QR codes and upload things... between 3 children we were doing or submitting work from two school websites, tapestry, purple mash, seesaw, TT Rockstars and class dojo :facepalm: It was a full time job just managing all that (I bought some paper workbooks in the end).
 
Sister (teacher) is going for her third C-19 test. Not long after a 14 day Isolation.

Her youngest daughter (up thread) who had symptoms tested negative. However one of her students has tested positive as well as the replacement (usual one tested positive) assistant and the cleaner.

Her eldest daughters year is still in quarantine as several kids, teachers and other staff have tested positive.

My mum who has been helping with the school run during sisters quarantine is now showing symptoms and off for a test tomorrow.

#worldbeating
 
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Thora said:
And the sheer number of different platforms being used and not all will work on a chromebook/phone/desktop and some you need to scan QR codes and upload things... between 3 children we were doing or submitting work from two school websites, tapestry, purple mash, seesaw, TT Rockstars and class dojo :facepalm: It was a full time job just managing all that (I bought some paper workbooks in the end).
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Yes - I think nationally, teachers went a bit bonkers with all the different platforms. We do a lot of surveys at my workplace and one of the things that came back was that students/parents found that really too much. It's something we've taken on board. Almost all the CPD at the moment is about "blended learning" etc. It was a very steep learning curve and we're still learning now.
 
gaijingirl said:
Actually on the school reports. All the schools I have worked at have had drop down menu reports. My current school is the first I've worked at where we're allowed to write reports in our own words. I prefer this personally as I find it frustrating and near-impossible to categorise each child from a selection of pre-prepared sentences. However, it is very time-consuming - not just for me, but it means that we have members of staff whose job it is to proof-read all the reports to make sure that there are no typos/correct names are used etc. Teachers are honestly drowning with workload.

I had a man come in from the City - he'd worked in a high-pressure City job almost all his working life and had made a lot of money so jacked it in to do something more rewarding. I found him in his second week of teacher training in tears by the photocopy machine. It really is insane. Once you have lots of experience it does get easier but for a good number of years it's really really very hard indeed. There are a lot of casualties.

It doesn't help when we read so much negative stuff about ourselves in the press either.
Click to expand...

My eldest's school ( a very good school) did no online lessons or return any work at all (year 7). I don't know what they did for year 11. The message to year 7 was to do as much as you can and look after yourself. That suited us, for her and for the teachers. I didn't want her teachers working over 12 hour days, on their days off and at weekends to provide online lessons. This term, following surveys last term about what tech we had available, when R had to self-isolate she did have lessons online and it seemed to work well on the whole.

Yesterday, I spoke to my sister who teaches music in Liverpool and they don't have access to music rooms and instruments, she's not actually able to teach her subject. I think she's really struggling and she is very much a coper.
 
My daughter says bubbles are not being enforced at her school now, the teachers seem indifferent to mixing at break times in a way they didn't in September.
 
S☼I said:
My daughter says bubbles are not being enforced at her school now, the teachers seem indifferent to mixing at break times in a way they didn't in September.
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I doubt they're indifferent but it must all be taking its toll on teachers states of mind, it's not like they get any support to think about all these new roles they're having to play while putting themselves at risk is it? When I spoke with my sister it took 3 times before she realised I was asking a question about support for staff rather than pastoral support for the students. I think this is the outcome of not thinking about staff needs psychologically and a culture of blaming individuals for not coping, very much like healthcare.
 
Red Cat said:
I doubt they're indifferent but it must all be taking its toll on teachers states of mind, it's not like they get any support to think about all these new roles they're having to play while putting themselves at risk is it? When I spoke with my sister it took 3 times before she realised I was asking a question about support for staff rather than pastoral support for the students. I think this is the outcome of not thinking about staff needs psychologically and a culture of blaming individuals for not coping, very much like healthcare.
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No, I know. I've had myself removed from refectory duty in college as it was too stressful. I see in college an indifference to challenging which has come about (or always been there) as staff have not been dealing with anything outside their areas. In my opinion the most senior people should have spent the first week of term laying down a marker for everyone else. If a team.of staff don't all enforce health and safety rules all the time it just slips until all that's left is tape down a corridor and a few signs.
 
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