Off Topic Kids education question & thoughts ?

This is not meant to be in any way a political point, but I'll understand if mods kill it if it veers in that direction.

I see a lot of angst generated around the COVID lockdown. Speculation that the few months of missed schooling this year will potentially seriously damage the future success/opportunities/mental health et al, especially the early schoolers - year 1 and the final year exam laden school students.

I'm not an educator by trade (teacher, lecturer etc), so may not understand the complexities associated with the discipline, but I'm puzzled by what seems to me to be a simple, almost too obvious, solution to the problem - given that "home education during lockdown" seems to have been in the main ineffective in many circumstances.

Once the R number has been reduced to a sustainably low value, why could the education system not utilize the down-time in the school annual schedule ?

School vacations/holidays - there are lots of them - Easter, Christmas & Summer at a minimum. What does that add up to annually ? 12 +/- weeks ?

Use them for "catch up" of missed classes. Blend this semi-disrupted school year with the next school year to re-calibrate and get back on an even keel in the development of kids education. Modify higher education (college, university) schedules for "delayed school graduates" accordingly.

May even allow for parents to get back into contributing to the regeneration/recovery of the economic situation with their kids back in school.

I may well be glossing over major problems for the teaching fraternity here. It may take 2 years to "catch-up", but I'm not hearing any solutions on this front from anyone, anywhere.

Opinions/objections included welcome !

 

They have more or less done that here (Vietnam). Usually, they break off for summer mid-May, this has been put back to 1 July, so they are making back 6 weeks of their lost time.

 

My nephew has never been to a school, as he was home educated from the very start.

He's 12 years old now and trust me, he's as bright as a button. At first I thought it was a terrible idea, he'd miss out on the interaction with other kids etc.

Home education is a great thing. He reads, spells (Way better than a lot on here ) and he has more friends and activities than youll no doubt be imagining.

If there's any parents with kids of pre school age and maybe have the time to do it, I highly recommend home education.

 

In principle it seems a good idea, but coverage would be patchy at best.

Many families would not send their kids in, especially those in most need of catch up.
Teachers will be on holiday.
School buildings will be closed, undergoing maintenance or already have other scheduled uses during set closure times. (For example PFI contracts)
Who would bear the cost?

I'm not sure what the answer is but it would appear to me that there is a need to be more nuanced than simply declaring let's open schools longer.

 

Binning all those things taught at school and never used in the real world would save loads of time. Algibra, logarithams, and stuff like that.

 

Spellin' anarl.

 

80% of schools remained open too for Easter, Whit and Bank Holidays this year were already worked through so there’s little of this downtime left to shift around to move the terms around. There’s the summer holidays but parents just won’t send their children in (and it tends to be those children that are most at risk).

This whole “falling behind” thing I don’t believe in. Some countries (with better education) don’t start school til much later than we do so are the youngest at that much risk of developing? Nobody else has really fallen behind because they’ve all missed the same amount of time. Schools haven’t been setting new, not-yet-covered work. It’s been stuff the children had already done and could revisit and practise. They’ll soon be back up to speed (and they won’t need summer holidays to do it). Schools at primary level are planning recovery curriculums with a few weeks/half term of just basic skills and consolidation to set a foundation to move forward (alongside wellbeing etc).

Without getting too political, the people at the top (from any party!) are out of touch with what actually happens in a school setting. They want to throw money at it and tutors at it and whatever else.

As for the well-being, health and care side of things, the most vulnerable children have been in school throughout the lockdown anyway. I don’t know about anybody else on here that works in a school, but the kids I work with have come back happy and excited. Adults sometimes project their feelings onto the kids when they’re much more resilient than we give them credit for.

 

Spell checker

 

Nice to get an insider's perspective on this. You seem to be supporting my suspicion that the "talking heads" are milking this issue for their own point scoring agendas. (Whatever colour their rosettes may be !).

 

It’s fine in theory, but would need more teachers
Expecting them to work longer isn’t realistic as they work long hours already (much longer than they’re contracted for, and far too long for their health IMO)
They’d be able to do a few additional days in Summer etc, but wouldn’t fill the gap.
So it’s possible, but costly and now lots are stand alone academies, who would pick up the bill? If it was the Govt the issue would be a lack of qualified teachers.
Tricky one which will need lots of small solutions I imagine.
One option for schools would be staggering years, daily and through the year, which would help with distancing but again would have more costs and staff shortages.

...maybe just write 2020 off and don’t let them have a Birthday. That way they’ll have had extra lessons actually so they won’t be behind.
Under 16’s teams will look a bit bigger that’s all.

EDIT - Govt have put £1Bn on the table and it can be used for extra tuition

 

Void the season?

 

Seriously, having just retired from teaching at Uni, I see no reason why A level students can't operate more like Universities with all lectures video'd and available on line. Divide class into two/three and teach in parallel for teaching that requires contact, with tutorials to iron out problems etc. Set work to be done before classes to make sure preparation is actually done etc. Trouble is, the work to set it up would be expensive and time consuming, also, it will only work with motivated students.
You could split ordinary classes, run them in parallel, starting earlier and effectively running same class twice, half the students am, the other half pm. You double the contact teaching hours which is not going to be popular with anyone.

 

On one side, Even my 13 year old son wants to now go back... Only had limited taught materials and what he knows already, for him lack of routine and structure is the bigger problem
My daughters who are doing first year A levels are being taught new stuff, which if you don't get, you don't get... Lucky they have each other to bounce off and tutors are generally good via email, but it's not the same

From the other side the practicalities are a real problem. My children are all bussed into school and colleges, So a logistical problem to work around before we start. Both schools and colleges cannot fit the numbers of children previously due to distancing.

Not all schools have the rooms facilities to go back to pre-covid classroom sizes, some are very old, e.g our village school, is just an old house with multiple extensions.

Many schools are now Academies and have their own rules. Their is a lack of teachers anyway, a higher population than other jobs with pregnancy, other health conditions which normally would not require not distancing. Finally Teaching Assistants don't have contracts during summer holidays and often life blood of many schools, would not be there

All Doable but massive planning needed and changes to the way children are taught until we get a vaccine

 

Would the teaching unions accept their members being forced to work extra hours over the summer??

 

May be to much of a simple idea and it's obviously not as easy as just saying it, but why not just have all school years repeat this school year? I've absolutely no ties to schools, have no kids and obviously have no ideas of the workings and logistics of it. But could it be possible? Would it be worth it? Have the majority of kids missed enough time that it would harm their development moving forward?

 

There's too many intelligent people on this thread, so I'm off.

 

Thing is, with the exception of kids in exam years, the children haven’t missed anything learning related that can’t be recovered in Autumn 1. Our school has been setting online working and sending out paper packs to kids, but I know not every school is even doing this much.

I read about the idea of working over Summer, but honestly, aside from using us as childcare, there will be backlash from unions and parents as to why they have to send their kids in. This year hasn’t been ideal, and it’s the kids who have suffered, but with some clever time tabling and intervention, the kids that have been at home will soon catch up.
I worked through Both half term and Easter, I’d work Summer if they made up my holiday elsewhere, but I don’t speak for all staff. I’m looking forward to not having to plan for a while and spending some quality time with my little girl.

 

How about asking retired teachers to work (paid) if space is available, in order to facilitate smaller class sizes?

 

Why paid?? Did the retired Doctors & Nurses who returned back to the NHS front line get paid?? I don’t think so, get the retired teachers to volunteer too

 

I thought they were paid, see below:

"Those who return to the profession will receive a contract that reflects standard terms and conditions such as working hour protections, pay arrangements, and annual leave entitlement. They will also undertake a full induction and online training before they begin working."
https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/nhs-returners-coronavirus/

Paying people avoids friction with the unions