Good Morning All,

As I have been emphasising. This is a marathon, not a sprint - we will not continue with the pace nor the amount of work.

Hang in there parents, a reasonable balance is imminent!

This Monday SMT will review all input, from teachers, parents (thanks SEPTA reps) and students. What will distill out will not satisfy everybody but hopefully it will be an acceptable solution for most with input from all of our stakeholders.

Email response from one of our teachers who is also a parent, to an announcement that I had sent to teachers at SEC asking that we pace ourselves

(we = teachers, students, parents)

 ' ... Just a quick line to say how much I appreciate the emails you sent to staff and parents this afternoon. Being both teacher and parent puts me in a rather particular position sometimes. I normally manage to keep the roles comfortably separate. This past week has been totally new territory. 

As a parent, this week was truly overwhelming. My wife was working from home and I was handling the children. The amount of work received from College as well as my daughter's school was huge. There was no way I was going to keep up and after a very stressful Monday, I simply gave up trying. What gets done gets done. My day with the two, sometimes very demanding, children now starts at 07:00 and ends around 21:30. That's 14.5 almost non stop contact hours. 

(the following was posted on Facebook by the teacher/parent, which I asked if I could share with you).

Out of desperation, I wrote the following general post on Facebook:

From a parent and teacher to teachers in these crazy times: calm down with all the work sent home please.

Yes teaching and learning need to continue somehow, but remember that the structure at home is not the same as a classroom. Children cannot suddenly be expected to treat their home like a school and their carers like teachers; the dynamics are totally different and if we’re not careful, parents and children will burn out. Well, that’s my experience today anyway after setting off with all the best intentions of structure and ending up a shouting wreck. Let’s find this balance people!

This is new territory and most teachers will want to get work done and show parents that work is getting done, but expecting the same amount of work that is normally done in a day in class (or even a good chunk of it) to be done at home just won’t work. Most parents and carers are not trained teachers so the work will take longer and patience will be tested more. Home has far more distractions than the classroom. Children behave completely differently at home than in the classroom. The structure of a classroom is the result of many many hours of dedicated work by all involved. Those parents who also happen to be teachers are not used to teaching their own children and so the situation is also very challenging. It’s a whole new ball game and we are all learning as we go along.

Teachers, let’s be aware of parents’ reality.

They have a whole load of stuff on their plate already before having to home school their own children (start with having to somehow cope with their own work load at the same time). Good luck to all parents in keeping a calm head and some semblance of sanity (not to mention being able to give their children all they need). Over and out!

 I wanted to share this with you as I know many other parents felt exactly the same way. It is comforting to know that you are reminding teachers to keep the parents' perspective in mind. 

As a teacher, I am letting things settle, keeping in touch with my tutor group and not overloading the students with additional tasks. At the same time I am reflecting on how best to approach Drama and PSCD without having students to interact with. Very challenging... but not impossible. ...

Looking forward to all concerned finding their way in this period of enforced change.'

Wishing you all well.

Sincerely,

Mr Nollaig Mac an Bhaird
Headmaster