Schools closed until February? (part 3)

Ted_YNWA

My advice was not giving free rein to throw a load questions teachinggal123's way. Do not badger them this way please.

teachinggal123

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I answered your question.

Will you be teaching online if schools close beyond the 3 day extension?

Did you prepare yourself in any way over the last nine months for the possibility of another closure?

Ok fair enough.

Yes, I will be trying my best to go online as well as I can. I have a lot of my classes on ppt and I’m getting better at Zoom etc. I have not decided on the exact platform I’ll use as yet ... I’m hoping for help from people here and some of my more enlightened colleagues. Also friends from college.

I’ve done as much as possible to prepare for going online. I have looked at both The technology and pedagogy. I’m thinking about flipped models but there is a lot of conflicting thought on this approach. I am really missing guidance from someone who knows what they are doing. I have honestly tried my best but in the circumstances I am in this has been very very difficult.

teachinggal123

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Ok fair enough.

Yes, I will be trying my best to go online as well as I can. I have a lot of my classes on ppt and I’m getting better at Zoom etc. I have not decided on the exact platform I’ll use as yet ... I’m hoping for help from people here and some of my more enlightened colleagues. Also friends from college.

I’ve done as much as possible to prepare for going online. I have looked at both The technology and pedagogy. I’m thinking about flipped models but there is a lot of conflicting thought on this approach. I am really missing guidance from someone who knows what they are doing. I have honestly tried my best but in the circumstances I am in this has been very very difficult.

I'm glad to hear that. Thanks for responding.

Stateofyou

I thought the DES sent out a directive to the schools to ensure their teachers and pupils were trained in the event of going online?

I know my kids' school principal and teachers decided a platform, did training, and had the kids using it this year some so students and parents would be familiar with how it works.

Isn't the school principal obliged to have this in place now.

Dave0301

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Ok fair enough.

Yes, I will be trying my best to go online as well as I can. I have a lot of my classes on ppt and I’m getting better at Zoom etc. I have not decided on the exact platform I’ll use as yet ... I’m hoping for help from people here and some of my more enlightened colleagues. Also friends from college.

I’ve done as much as possible to prepare for going online. I have looked at both The technology and pedagogy. I’m thinking about flipped models but there is a lot of conflicting thought on this approach. I am really missing guidance from someone who knows what they are doing. I have honestly tried my best but in the circumstances I am in this has been very very difficult.

Not sure what your subject is, but I can point you the right direction for resources if you are stuck for science/maths.

It can be a bit naff at times but I suggest you have a look at #edutwitter on Twitter. There are different hashtags for subjects after that, but a lot of teachers put their resources on Google Drive or Dropbox and share it for free. Lots of good stuff there for remote teaching.

wirelessdude01

Stateofyou wrote: »

I thought the DES sent out a directive to the schools to ensure their teachers and pupils were trained in the event of going online?

I know my kids' school principal and teachers decided a platform, did training, and had the kids using it this year some so students and parents would be familiar with how it works.

Isn't the school principal obliged to have this in place now.

If they are using it then it is in place or am I missing something?

Stateofyou

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

If they are using it then it is in place or am I missing something?

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. My post/question was in relation to another poster not knowing how to train up on online teaching or the right platform to use.

I had thought these things were supposed to be sorted and in place already as per the DES directive, so as to be ready if schools close again.

teachinggal123

Dave0301 wrote: »

Not sure what your subject is, but I can point you the right direction for resources if you are stuck for science/maths.

It can be a bit naff at times but I suggest you have a look at #edutwitter on Twitter. There are different hashtags for subjects after that, but a lot of teachers put their resources on Google Drive or Dropbox and share it for free. Lots of good stuff there for remote teaching.

Thanks, but not science or maths unfortunately

Bananaleaf

Stateofyou wrote: »

I thought the DES sent out a directive to the schools to ensure their teachers and pupils were trained in the event of going online?

I know my kids' school principal and teachers decided a platform, did training, and had the kids using it this year some so students and parents would be familiar with how it works.

Isn't the school principal obliged to have this in place now.

We got no training. We were told to familiarise ourselves and I would say that a lot were told the same, which is probably why some of the teachers in teachingal's school feel the way they do in fairness.

We were told we would get training and guidance on the predicted grades. We didn't.
We were told we would be used to help with contact tracing last year. We weren't.
We were told our predicted grades wouldn't be shared with students. They were.
We were told we would be given Covid-specific health and safety training on our return to school. We weren't
We were told - and are regularly told - a lot of things. We don't always get them.

wirelessdude01

Stateofyou wrote: »

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. My post/question was in relation to another poster not knowing how to train up on online teaching or the right platform to use.

I had thought these things were supposed to be sorted and in place already as per the DES directive, so as to be ready if schools close again.

They are. We've had ours fully up and running since the first week back.

khalessi

Bananaleaf wrote: »

We got no training. We were told to familiarise ourselves and I would say that a lot were told the same, which is probably why some of the teachers in teachingal's school feel the way they do in fairness.

We were told we would get training and guidance on the predicted grades. We didn't.
We were told we would be used to help with contact tracing last year. We weren't.
We were told our predicted grades wouldn't be shared with students. They were.
We were told we would be given Covid-specific health and safety training on our return to school. We weren't
We were told - and are regularly told - a lot of things. We don't get them.

Ah yes I forgot about the covid training we were to receive. Another thing to add to the list of things Dept of Ed didnt follow up on.

Stateofyou

Bananaleaf wrote: »

We got no training. We were told to familiarise ourselves and I would say that a lot were told the same, which is probably why some of the teachers in teachingal's school feel the way they do in fairness.

We were told we would get training and guidance on the predicted grades. We didn't.
We were told we would be used to help with contact tracing last year. We weren't.
We were told our predicted grades wouldn't be shared with students. They were.
We were told we would be given Covid-specific health and safety training on our return to school. We weren't
We were told - and are regularly told - a lot of things. We don't always get them.

That sounds very frustrating. Is that a failing of your principle, the DES or both?

mirrorwall14

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Ok fair enough.

Yes, I will be trying my best to go online as well as I can. I have a lot of my classes on ppt and I’m getting better at Zoom etc. I have not decided on the exact platform I’ll use as yet ... I’m hoping for help from people here and some of my more enlightened colleagues. Also friends from college.

I’ve done as much as possible to prepare for going online. I have looked at both The technology and pedagogy. I’m thinking about flipped models but there is a lot of conflicting thought on this approach. I am really missing guidance from someone who knows what they are doing. I have honestly tried my best but in the circumstances I am in this has been very very difficult.

I’m using the flipped classroom model for maths at the moment as I’m a very high risk teacher with a sub in school who is a graduate not qualified. They do their ‘homework’ in school while being supervised by someone who can properly help them and watch the video of me demonstrating at home each night.

I’m not sure how it would work in the online set up though tbh as you can’t really supervise them through zoom. We were not allowed set additional work above the time allocated to our classes on timetable (ie no homework) as our students were overwhelmed. We are 1;1 devices so moved straight to online teaching and learning. I imagine that policy will still stand should we close again.

Also whatever you think you will get done in an online class, you need to half it. And possibly half it again

Bananaleaf

Stateofyou wrote: »

That sounds very frustrating. Is that a failing of your principle, the DES or both?

I don't want to say that it is a failing of my principal because I think he has really done his best. He asked two staff members who are computer savvy to make themselves available to help us when they can, but they can only offer so much help and only at specific times of the day that they are free. It doesn't suit everyone and can't cater for us all. That said, it has equipped us all with the basics which is good. However, it is completely at odds with what we were promised and with what we will need if we go purely online.

The DES on the otherhand, haven't rolled out anything to make sure that we know what we are doing. Not even so much as an online video that could have been circulated to every school in the country. If they did do a video like this, I didn't see it anyway. They were also emphatic about how well we would be trained around Covid safety, to the point where I'm pretty sure it was implied that we wouldn't be able to start the new term unless we had done this on-site training workshop. That in-depth training for teachers to be able to safely start the new term turned out to be a massive questionnaire about sharps needles, biohazard bags and bedsheets with vomit on them :rolleyes:

Lillyfae

Just on the training point, at my work we were just given Teams and Zoom and told to use them. With Office back in the day I think I just went through the training that comes with the software in my own time in my early 20s. It wouldn’t fly if I told my manager I couldn’t use them because I never did a course. I use other, specialized programs that I’ve also never been trained to use. What kind of information do you need that’s not available?

JimmyVik

Lillyfae wrote: »

Just on the training point, at my work we were just given Teams and Zoom and told to use them. With Office back in the day I think I just went through the training that comes with the software in my own time in my early 20s. It wouldn’t fly if I told my manager I couldn’t use them because I never did a course. I use other, specialized programs that I’ve also never been trained to use. What kind of information do you need that’s not available?

True but you didnt have to teach 30 children and their parents to use it at the same time as yourself


I was on a course at work last Wednesday and 6 of us on zoom was a disaster.
It was fine when the trainer was just talking at us and going through slides. When people started asking questions it became a laughable experience.

Bananaleaf

Lillyfae wrote: »

Just on the training point, at my work we were just given Teams and Zoom and told to use them. With Office back in the day I think I just went through the training that comes with the software in my own time in my early 20s. It wouldn’t fly if I told my manager I couldn’t use them because I never did a course. I use other, specialized programs that I’ve also never been trained to use. What kind of information do you need that’s not available?

Fair point.

Is there training that comes with Teams software? I never knew this, where can I get it? I got a school laptop with teams already installed on it so genuinely don't know where to get the training from.

Having completed hours of training on how to use OneNote, our school switched to Teams in the middle of lockdown 1. I almost had a nervous breakdown trying to use Microsoft Forms on my own with no tech support to help me. My heart went right out to the students struggling to online learn that day!

I can work the basics. I can upload documents and I can run a meeting and record it. But there is a lot that I can't do on it that I can in a traditional class setting and it is frustrating. Over lockdown 1 it took me 4hrs to learn something that someone qualified could have shown me in 5mins. Now, over lockdown 1 when I had nothing better to be doing and it was all last minute, fair enough. But why should I put up with that level of support now?

A gang of us asked 3 times to get better training on it, someone from the ETB was contacted, they came out and the day they arrived the internet was down. Regularly since September, we would arrive to class to show a PowerPoint (or even sometimes to live stream home) and the internet would crash. There was a memorable day for me in October where I had planned 3 lessons for the one class and each one of them was unusable because of failures in technology. I saw a colleague of mine actually ripping at her hair because of the frustration of it all one evening. Maybe we should complain about it more but being totally honest, at some point you get worn down by it and you just stop. In the last 3 weeks of the term I just went to the books and we did reading and writing from them because I just couldn't face it anymore. Outside of work I still have my own life and inside of work I'm too busy (despite what many would like to think) to sit and spend up to 2hrs trying to school myself in something that probably won't work anyway.

Also, and this is the major one, there was no training set up for the students. I know what you will be thinking, but let me tell you that a lot of students are nearly as illiterate as I am when it comes to tech. I was shocked too.

I gave up 3 40min periods of my own subject contact time with 5th years to try get them set up on Teams in school in the first term. Either some were absent, couldn't log into the computer, Teams wasn't installed or the internet would go down for about a third of the class each time. I'm then left feeling very frustrated because I essentially am left to say to about 6/7 kids "just sit there for the class and watch someone else doing the work" which is a total waste of their time. I can log the problems with IT support, but it could be 3 days before that issue is resolved and in the meantime I have to move on.

All of our 1st year students had two full days of induction into the school in the first term. Where they did lovely workshops on bullying, the student council, etc. I suggested that these days would be a fantastic opportunity to do an ICT workshop and get them all set up on Teams. I was told that this was a "great idea" but that was how it remained. An idea. Tbf, the deputy probably forgot I had mentioned it when she looked back at her original plan for the day and with how busy I am, I completely forgot about the induction day until I got the email about it the night before to remind us it was happening.

Internet is at its worst lately in our school. Maybe because everyone is using it, I don't know. Most of what appears to be incompetence in school settings is, in my opinion, due to the fact that teachers have too many roles to fulfill (for example, I am a teacher, a class tutor, an SEN co-coordinator, a HOD of the MFL dept, the GreenSchools coordinator, am developing the MFL level2 programme and am in the middle of completing RACE applications for the State exams at the moment, ALL unpaid roles except for the teacher one) but I wont get agreement on that and it's an argument for a different thread I suppose too.

Edited to add: I only mention that the roles are unpaid because someone might think otherwise.

Lillyfae

JimmyVik wrote: »

True but you didnt have to teach 30 children and their parents to use it at the same time as yourself


I was on a course at work last Wednesday and 6 of us on zoom was a disaster.
It was fine when the trainer was just talking at us and going through slides. When people started asking questions it became a laughable experience.

Why, did the trainer not indicate you should use the chatbox or put up your hands?

kippy

Bananaleaf wrote: »

Fair point.

Is there training that comes with Teams software? I never knew this, where can I get it? I got a school laptop with teams already installed on it so genuinely don't know where to get the training from.

Having completed hours of training on how to use OneNote, our school switched to Teams in the middle of lockdown 1. I almost had a nervous breakdown trying to use Microsoft Forms on my own with no tech support to help me. My heart went right out to the students struggling to online learn that day!

I can work the basics. I can upload documents and I can run a meeting and record it. But there is a lot that I can't do on it that I can in a traditional class setting and it is frustrating. Over lockdown 1 it took me 4hrs to learn something that someone qualified could have shown me in 5mins. Now, over lockdown 1 when I had nothing better to be doing and it was all last minute, fair enough. But why should I put up with that level of support now?

A gang of us asked 3 times to get better training on it, someone from the ETB was contacted, they came out and the day they arrived the internet was down. Regularly since September, we would arrive to class to show a PowerPoint (or even sometimes to live stream home) and the internet would crash. There was a memorable day for me in October where I had planned 3 lessons for the one class and each one of them was unusable because of failures in technology. I saw a colleague of mine actually ripping at her hair because of the frustration of it all one evening. Maybe we should complain about it more but being totally honest, at some point you get worn down by it and you just stop. In the last 3 weeks of the term I just went to the books and we did reading and writing from them because I just couldn't face it anymore. Outside of work I still have my own life and inside of work I'm too busy (despite what many would like to think) to sit and spend up to 2hrs trying to school myself in something that probably won't work anyway.

Also, and this is the major one, there was no training set up for the students. I know what you will be thinking, but let me tell you that a lot of students are nearly as illiterate as I am when it comes to tech. I was shocked too.

I gave up 3 40min periods of my own subject contact time with 5th years to try get them set up on Teams in school in the first term. Either some were absent, couldn't log into the computer, Teams wasn't installed or the internet would go down for about a third of the class each time. I'm then left feeling very frustrated because I essentially am left to say to about 6/7 kids "just sit there for the class and watch someone else doing the work" which is a total waste of their time. I can log the problems with IT support, but it could be 3 days before that issue is resolved and in the meantime I have to move on.

All of our 1st year students had two full days of induction into the school in the first term. Where they did lovely workshops on bullying, the student council, etc. I suggested that these days would be a fantastic opportunity to do an ICT workshop and get them all set up on Teams. I was told that this was a "great idea" but that was how it remained. An idea. Tbf, the deputy probably forgot I had mentioned it when she looked back at her original plan for the day and with how busy I am, I completely forgot about the induction day until I got the email about it the night before to remind us it was happening.

Internet is at its worst lately in our school. Maybe because everyone is using it, I don't know. Most of what appears to be incompetence in school settings is, in my opinion, due to the fact that teachers have too many roles to fulfill (for example, I am a teacher, a class tutor, an SEN co-coordinator, a HOD of the MFL dept, the GreenSchools coordinator, am developing the MFL level2 programme and am in the middle of completing RACE applications for the State exams at the moment, ALL unpaid roles except for the teacher one) but I wont get agreement on that and it's an argument for a different thread I suppose too.

Edited to add: I only mention that the roles are unpaid because someone might think otherwise.

You'll find a tonne of training on almost any application out there online for free:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-teams-video-training-4f108e54-240b-4351-8084-b1089f0d21d7
(For example)
https://www.washoeschools.net/cms/lib/NV01912265/Centricity/domain/1450/documents/Everything%20You%20Need%20to%20Know%20About%20Microsoft%20Teams%20for%20Teachers.pdf
(Teacher specific)
Zoom:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206618765-Zoom-video-tutorials
https://edu.google.com/latest-news/distance-learning/
Google Classroom
https://www.ispringsolutions.com/blog/getting-started-with-moodle#:~:text=Moodle%20is%20a%20platform%20for,them%20in%20forums%20and%20discussions.
Moodle
And so on.

Now, to be fair, theres a lot of admin in the backend that has to be set up initially and I know in primary schools this isn't always easy but usually there is some level of support in secondary schools.


All that being said, there are a phenomenal amount of people out there that "don't know" where to get certain things - like training on specific software - it's amazing that this is still the case - the internet is the key driver of knowledge sharing and should be the first port of call for something that they "don't know". (Not attempting to be negative towards you here)

Lillyfae

Bananaleaf wrote: »

Fair point.

Is there training that comes with Teams software? I never knew this, where can I get it? I got a school laptop with teams already installed on it so genuinely don't know where to get the training from.

Having completed hours of training on how to use OneNote, our school switched to Teams in the middle of lockdown 1. I almost had a nervous breakdown trying to use Microsoft Forms on my own with no tech support to help me. My heart went right out to the students struggling to online learn that day!

I can work the basics. I can upload documents and I can run a meeting and record it. But there is a lot that I can't do on it that I can in a traditional class setting and it is frustrating. Over lockdown 1 it took me 4hrs to learn something that someone qualified could have shown me in 5mins. Now, over lockdown 1 when I had nothing better to be doing and it was all last minute, fair enough. But why should I put up with that level of support now?

A gang of us asked 3 times to get better training on it, someone from the ETB was contacted, they came out and the day they arrived the internet was down. Regularly since September, we would arrive to class to show a PowerPoint (or even sometimes to live stream home) and the internet would crash. There was a memorable day for me in October where I had planned 3 lessons for the one class and each one of them was unusable because of failures in technology. I saw a colleague of mine actually ripping at her hair because of the frustration of it all one evening. Maybe we should complain about it more but being totally honest, at some point you get worn down by it and you just stop. In the last 3 weeks of the term I just went to the books and we did reading and writing from them because I just couldn't face it anymore. Outside of work I still have my own life and inside of work I'm too busy (despite what many would like to think) to sit and spend up to 2hrs trying to school myself in something that probably won't work anyway.

Also, and this is the major one, there was no training set up for the students. I know what you will be thinking, but let me tell you that a lot of students are nearly as illiterate as I am when it comes to tech. I was shocked too.

I gave up 3 40min periods of my own subject contact time with 5th years to try get them set up on Teams in school in the first term. Either some were absent, couldn't log into the computer, Teams wasn't installed or the internet would go down for about a third of the class each time. I'm then left feeling very frustrated because I essentially am left to say to about 6/7 kids "just sit there for the class and watch someone else doing the work" which is a total waste of their time. I can log the problems with IT support, but it could be 3 days before that issue is resolved and in the meantime I have to move on.

All of our 1st year students had two full days of induction into the school in the first term. Where they did lovely workshops on bullying, the student council, etc. I suggested that these days would be a fantastic opportunity to do an ICT workshop and get them all set up on Teams. I was told that this was a "great idea" but that was how it remained. An idea. Tbf, the deputy probably forgot I had mentioned it when she looked back at her original plan for the day and with how busy I am, I completely forgot about the induction day until I got the email about it the night before to remind us it was happening.

Internet is at its worst lately in our school. Maybe because everyone is using it, I don't know. Most of what appears to be incompetence in school settings is, in my opinion, due to the fact that teachers have too many roles to fulfill (for example, I am a teacher, a class tutor, an SEN co-coordinator, a HOD of the MFL dept, the GreenSchools coordinator, am developing the MFL level2 programme and am in the middle of completing RACE applications for the State exams at the moment, ALL unpaid roles except for the teacher one) but I wont get agreement on that and it's an argument for a different thread I suppose too.

Edited to add: I only mention that the roles are unpaid because someone might think otherwise.

That’s a long post :pac:. Bear with me, I’m on my phone.

Internet issues need to be solved, I give you that. It’s a joke this day in age. Ditto students need guidance, but really only as much as the teacher would use the functionality of whatever platform they’re using. If the teacher doesn’t know it, it’s irrelevant because it won’t be used. I’ve often had to learn a system, then write the operating procedures for my colleagues and vice versa. I reiterate, I’ve had no training in Zoom or Teams, but have hosted presentations on both, and Lync and Skype when they were the new black. It doesn’t matter if it’s simple, as long as it’s clear and does what you need it to do.

I commend you for all the unpaid roles you’re doing but like any job, if there’s too much on your plate you have to draw a line with your manager. As for training otherwise, one thing that this has highlighted for me is that your colleagues, friends and family can be a very valuable resource for information. My husband knows far more than I do about Teams and Zoom, I know more about Outlook and Excel so we have shared tips. Same with my colleagues, who are only a ping away if I have a question. Especially the recently qualified ones!

KerryConnor

I think the problem with zoom learning and primary for example is that in many cases it just doesn't really work. I did zoom classes last spring and many of the kids just didn't turn up. if they do turn up it's really hard to hold their attention for any meaningful learning we just really ended up using it to keep in touch and talk through the work set. I know my own daughter missed classes as we were so out the door in this house keeping our 2 jobs going and trying to support my 2 dyslexic secondary school kids that Id forget to dial her in.
I'm hoping we get back on the 11th provided numbers have started coming down at that point.
If we are back in school with proper support for principals i think it would work. For example they need to close schools temporarily when local incidence rates goes above a certain level. Proper mass testing of schools that have a few cases and close them quickly when necessary (there has been no mass testing in schools to date, only testing of close contacts). However I am concerned as the support for schools was actually negligent before the Christmas hols. Just think of Claremorris, that must have been a traumatic experience for that principal. And showed the lack of care and consideration for that school community.
School staff want to do their job. If they use common sense and not political motivations i think it will work.

Lillyfae wrote: »

Just on the training point, at my work we were just given Teams and Zoom and told to use them. With Office back in the day I think I just went through the training that comes with the software in my own time in my early 20s. It wouldn’t fly if I told my manager I couldn’t use them because I never did a course. I use other, specialized programs that I’ve also never been trained to use. What kind of information do you need that’s not available?

JimmyVik

Lillyfae wrote: »

Why, did the trainer not indicate you should use the chatbox or put up your hands?

Oh you make it sound so easy and smooth.

glack

Some very black and white posts about “teachers should have completed training” etc here. And then comparing to an office environment. But that comparison is unfair. We are dealing with children, not adults.

I’m fairly handy with IT and have been involved with the PDST (department funded training) Technology team for years so would be one of the lucky skilled teachers for remote teaching. However even I found it incredibly challenging.

It is one thing to expect a teacher to be able to use Teams/Zoom/Classroom etc. That’s the easy part. However, the difference is with children you not only have to be able to use it, you have to talk children/parents through how to do it too. You are the tech support and the teacher at the same and if you aren’t very confident it turns into a disaster. You still have all the usual classroom management issues too-they don’t suddenly disappear.

We have used Google Classroom extensively this year in our senior classes so we are far better prepared than last March. However, it would still be a massive challenge to switch to remote teaching. It just doesn’t work well with primary children.

Hopefully we re-open on the 11th as planned. I would much rather see a more pro active response with classroom and school closures where needed than a blanket closure.

I do think by far the biggest challenge facing schools this term will be staffing. Teaching students have been filling the gaps in a lot of areas but they are about to head into Teaching Practice so they won’t be available.

vid36

A better idea would be to scrap the midterm and plan a phased return from January 18.Some estimates suggest case numbers approaching 4000 a day by January 11.I think it will be impossible to return that day.Even the government ministers say that the date of January 11 is constantly under review.

wirelessdude01

KerryConnor wrote: »

I think the problem with zoom learning and primary for example is that in many cases it just doesn't really work. I did zoom classes last spring and many of the kids just didn't turn up. if they do turn up it's really hard to hold their attention for any meaningful learning we just really ended up using it to keep in touch and talk through the work set. I know my own daughter missed classes as we were so out the door in this house keeping our 2 jobs going and trying to support my 2 dyslexic secondary school kids that Id forget to dial her in.
I'm hoping we get back on the 11th provided numbers have started coming down at that point.
If we are back in school with proper support for principals i think it would work. For example they need to close schools temporarily when local incidence rates goes above a certain level. Proper mass testing of schools that have a few cases and close them quickly when necessary (there has been no mass testing in schools to date). However I am concerned as the support for schools was actually negligent before the Christmas hols. Just think of Claremorris, that must have been a traumatic experience for that principal. And showed the lack of care and consideration of that school community.
School staff want to do their job. Use common sense and not political motivations and it will work.

I had the same experience. Once Leo announced they weren't going back to school engagement just fell off a cliff. Calls, emails and text messages were left unanswered or unreturned. I kept plodding away with those that wanted to. Start of June most of those just stopped as well.

Anyway, if we do have to go online in some form I think we all know it will be for a very short period, fortnight max would be what I would hope.

lulublue22

JimmyVik wrote: »

Oh you make it sound so easy and smooth.

try explaining that to 30 8 years 😉

Stateofyou

I'm going to start by saying (reminding) I'm not a teacher. But I have plenty of work experience, and I can say that to be out of my depth/knowledge/experience in some way happens at least a few times a year. I've also been in jobs, especially in the early part of my career, where it's all monotonous and I'm not challenged enough. I much prefer the former.

Anyway, most employers look for self-starters, independent thinkers who can figure things out and doesn't need to be hand-held. In fact this was explicitly stated in the previous position I had. The company transitioned from Outlook to Google apps while I was there and I had to teach myself how to use them. My colleagues and I exchanged tips frequently which was great. We changed video conferencing systems a few times, and the people data system. I took an intermediate Excel course through LinkedIn to teach myself how to create a report that my boss asked me for. She asked if I could get that to her and what she was looking for-I knew I didn't know it at that time, but I knew I could figure it out eventually so I said yes. There's so many other random programs I learned to use, too, in order to get a project done. I accomplished a lot in those 5 years in the job, yes there was some sweat in the high stress moments but looking back I very much feel proud and a sense of accomplishment for rising to so many challenges that at time scared me too. I've had to teach what I know to dozens of people, too. And I've even been involved in projects with kids in the community. My employer didn't usually provide this training, and I put in much of my own time to learn, but that knowledge and skill will always stand to me so it was worth it.

My point is, not knowing how to do something isn't really an excuse. The information and training is there if one cares enough to go after it. Not knowing what platform to use and how to use it by end of December at this stage, is a strange one (especially considering the Principal should have ensured remote learning was possible in future?). Even if my boss or colleagues didn't provide me the training, I would make it my business to figure it out and share what I learned too.

lulublue22

Ditto - would much rather be in school - feel if this bull about school being safe and a controlled environment was dropped and a we understand there is a risk but we think it’s a risk we need to take and here’s how we are going to mitigate that risk .... same definition of contact tracing as in the community , move to close individual schools as necessary it would he much much better for everyone.

ETA - there seems to be an assumption that children due to smartphones and playstations etc are a lot more technologically advanced then they are. We found a lot of our children struggled with the basics.

araic88

As a primary teacher, the only guidance I feel I've gotten from the DES is to BE PREPARED INCASE WE CLOSE AGAIN!! It's as if they think that telling us this is enough to tick their box of responsibility. No guidance of best practice, efforts to provide devices to families or to help families in any way.
Believe me, figuring out how to teach by Zoom is not my issue, it's figuring out how to ensure my class are actually learning, when a very surprising number of families don't have laptops/computers and usually don't have enough tablets/smartphones for all siblings. When we did a survey, less than a fifth of my pupils had access to a printer, and many parents had been writing out what was on worksheets so that their children could complete them.

I found it very hard to provide enough work to keep the "engaged" ones going, without feeling I was leaving the others behind, whether it was because English was a barrier for parents, or the parents were working themselves and couldn't help their children much, or because they didn't have devices to access some of what we were trying to do. Confidence also seemed to be a big issue for parents, the most useful thing I found was to phone the families as often as I could (which would take days to get through the list of close to 30) and so many parents would mention how they weren't trained for this, they're not teachers etc. I think if there had been a blanket approach, it would have been easier on parents. As it was, every school was trying to stumble blindly along, no wonder it was overwhelming for everyone.

After hearing stories from friends in other countries, I think I'd be keen to try a blended approach (if we absolutely couldn't open fully). If half the class could come in from 9-12 perhaps, and then the other from 1-4, to allow for lunch, and cleaning etc. We wouldn't need as much time to prepare lessons because it would only be three hours of teaching, repeated, instead of five hours.
This all or nothing approach we've had doesn't suit anyone.

lulublue22

vid36 wrote: »

A better idea would be to scrap the midterm and plan a phased return from January 18.Some estimates suggest case numbers approaching 4000 a day by January 11.I think it will be impossible to return that day.Even the government ministers say that the date of January 11 is constantly under review.

For some reason gov never considered a phased return or a hybrid 1/2 in 1/2 out system. They seem very very caught up in all children in school viewpoint.