Govt catch up plan

Will the plan every materialise - or somehow get forgotten like last year's Summer Schools, and a laptop for every child?

Lengthening the school day didn’t fill teachers with unalloyed glee especially as they have worked harder than ever during the pandemic - as no, contrary to some perceptions, schools were NOT closed, there was face to face teaching for key workers’ children who had places, on line lessons to deliver or record and plan,for those at home, teacher assessments instead of public exams - oh and many of them have their own children and had to somehow juggle home schooling with attendance at school .
Personally I don’t think kids need to “catch” up with their maths or phonics or fronted adverbials, but with outdoor activities, team sports, leisure activities with their peers - being kids.
But that’s just my opinion.

I also would like to see more outdoor team building activities for pupils of all ages. They have missed out on socialising with their peers, all the rest will come with time.

It's a mockery of those parents who have been unable to support their children over the last year.

I agree that this is a chance to improve state education overall by enriching the offering MawBe. Making them work a longer day at the basics and, I assume making the same teachers who have already done a days work also work a longer day with tired children, does not seem the way forward to me.

Gavin Williamson will never be the person to get money out of the Treasury or see education as something to do with the whole experience of the child.

There seem to be a lot of teachers and retired teachers on GN. I wonder whether many would be likely to do catch up tutoring?

I agree with every word you have written MawBe and GrannyGravy. Children need to get back to normal now, not to be stuck in school learning about fronted adverbials! Outside activities and social activities are what they need. The mental health of many children has been adversely affected by the lockdown and fronted adverbials aren’t going to help them recover, but social activities and fun outdoor activities will do.

No thank you Varian. I don’t want to go back into teaching, I was glad to retire.

In response to Varian, I am a retired head of maths. For the past 3 years I have volunteered for a charity called Action Tutoring who work in various parts of the country and provide tuition for students who receive free school meals and who are in danger of not achieving grade C in maths, with the new GCSE it is grade 4/5. They also do English tuition. I really enjoyed this and worked with some lovely students. I stopped because of Covid and at the moment I am not sure when I will have sufficient confidence to go back into a school environment. We only worked with year 11s so they saw the point of extra maths or English as GCSEs were getting close, not sure of the value of it for younger students. I like the idea that GrannyGravy suggests.

varian

There seem to be a lot of teachers and retired teachers on GN. I wonder whether many would be likely to do catch up tutoring?

On a scale of 1-10/of desirability by either party, this doesn’t even register Varian

For half a term last year my daughter’s class had an extra hour one day a week to do extra maths, this was funded from the Covid pot. She enjoyed that. She could do with having this again as Zoom lessons really didn’t engage her in this last lockdown, whereas in the big lockdown she thrived without the structure and made big leaps in her maths knowledge.

I wouldn’t be happy with an extended day every day.

I work in FE and we received funding from the Covid pot for a variety of things. The bit I was involved in was to help lower ability students catch up. Although they weren’t actually behind, so I was doing some employability with them - not that I was paid for doing this. Left a bit of a sour taste did that.

It just seems to me that there's not a lot of will to put their money where their mouth is. Some children will never catch up with lifelong repercussions. Agree its not just the maths and English but confidence and team building that needs addressing. Is it just going to get kicked into the long grass? Along with Social Care reform?

Personally I don’t think kids need to “catch” up with their maths or phonics or fronted adverbials, but with outdoor activities, team sports, leisure activities with their peers - being kids.
But that’s just my opinion.

It's mine too.
Some children will need to catch up academically although, in my limited experience of DGC and teachers in the family, schools and teachers have done an excellent job in ensuring that academic work was set, marked and assessments made.

They have missed out on so much more which schools offer such as sports, drama, art, music, outdoor activity holidays etc. and some children will only ever experience these through their schools.

Agree riverwalk. Summer school catch up never materialised.

Not all children will need catch up. It’s those that were assessed as being lower than expected levels at the start of the pandemic that worry me. They should get priority funding for one to one tuition.

Priority for all should be outdoor / team activities.

Johnson's Education Czar has resigned. Sir Kevin Collins sent his resignation to Mr Johnson this evening, criticising the lack of funding on offer to help children make up for lost learning over the course of the pandemic.

There are some with morals left in politics.

There are some with morals left in politics. Just not among the Tories or Tory voters.

Quote from the Education Chief resignation letter 'I do not believe it is credible that a successful recovery can be achieved with a programme of support of this size.”
This government is in the process of failing hundreds of thousands of children. I guess that they have worked out that their parents are not likely to be Tory voters.

Here, here Mawbe Teachers as well as pupils are exhausted. All the teachers of my acquaintance taught online all day, prepared lessons and downloaded them in their own time and then marked, then dealt with blended teaching where some pupils were in school and being taught face to face while others were taught remotely. They cleaned classrooms after every class and barely had time to go to the loo, all the while being criticised by MSM. I'm sure that this was a similar situation in England. No-one I know will sign up for catch up teaching, although I haven't heard of plans in Scotland yet. Many teachers in England are paid on a term basis only. I can't see it working. Children need time to be children. A very short sighted approach.

I don’t know what the answer to it is. But it worries me that there has been a huge disparity between children that have had good online teaching along with support from their parents and those where the parents haven’t been very hands on.

If there is a division in culture in this country it is between those in the Tory party (and quite possibly those who back them) and those in jobs that have, so often in the past have been the first to be isolated and worse by the right. That's those in education (has Boris still not forgiven his tutors at Oxford ) and the judiciary (who may yet end his career as an aspiring dictator taking the country for everything he can)

Oops, typo alert. That should say, hear,hear. I must have been carried away. Apologies.

MayBee70

I don’t know what the answer to it is. But it worries me that there has been a huge disparity between children that have had good online teaching along with support from their parents and those where the parents haven’t been very hands on.

It worries me too, but there will always be parents who don't care about their child's education and who, even if tuition were offered, wouldn't engage in it anyway.
We need to show them the value of education.

So the government shells out billions to the failed test and trace as well as millions upon millions to their cronies but are not prepared to help the children who have been hit so hard by covid lockdown.

Another point I've just thought of, is that my ex teacher colleagues have commented on the huge rise in mental health issues in pupils which they are having to deal with ad hoc. I'm sure that will be replicated across the UK. The money would be better spent employing specialists to help these anxious and often bereaved children to build resilience.

Ellianne

MayBee70

I don’t know what the answer to it is. But it worries me that there has been a huge disparity between children that have had good online teaching along with support from their parents and those where the parents haven’t been very hands on.

It worries me too, but there will always be parents who don't care about their child's education and who, even if tuition were offered, wouldn't engage in it anyway.
We need to show them the value of education.

Absolutely. But my concern is fir the people that have wanted to help their children but didn’t have the means the time or the expertise to do it.