Home Schooling and WFH - how's it going ?

[Beebo]

Both of use are working from home.
my daughter seems to be able to function independently. My son is 9 and needs constant attention to keep focused.

 

[cyberknight]

Working OK for me: I had a melt-down in August with our kit so we've gone for fibre optic broadband (900MB upload & download) plus a decent webcam. Teaching university students via webcam isn't the same though.

Son no. 2's at home doing his A-levels remotely and we turned our guest room into a schoolroom for him last March just in case. The challenge for him is he needs to get out sometimes and exercise.

900 mbit !
im on fibre and get 18

 

[DCLane]

900 mbit !
im on fibre and get 18

Fibre optic's different. I'm in a test area and usefully the main box is about 30 feet from my house so they started the installation process about 2 streets from me. For my work it's the upload speed that counts and 900MB both ways allows three of us, when SWMBO's at home, to stream/download/play stuff all at the same time. It's all piped round a 1GB mains network system I also put together last August.

 

[fossyant]

Most of us have FTC (fibre to the cabinet). Ours has held up well, and I'm sure some of the slow downs are works network VPN

 

[figbat]

We’re on FTTC at around 44Mb/s which can just about deal with four simultaneous Teams calls, although we tend to disable video as needed to help with reliability and stability.

One small downside is that one of our children is having to use our bedroom as a workspace, meaning we have to be up and decent in good time to allow him to go live . We have an IKEA order arriving this week with a desk and other general bedroom upgrade furniture for him, so we can lie-in a bit if the opportunity allows.

We have a 10yo and 12yo and they are using the same timetable they would be on if at school, so are both pretty self-sufficient and self-managed. I occasionally have to act as IT support and network engineer but so far we have all stayed by-and-large online.

 

[Archie_tect]

My daughter is a primary teacher- Year 3 this year.

She has spent hours since the announcement preparing home schooling videos for her children to follow and watch with hand-outs emailed out to each child according to their own abilities... it means she is a week ahead so far but imagine teaching 15 children, of essential workers, in class of varying ability and then sending out video recorded lessons with targeted handouts for the rest to maintain the curriculum.

The only thing the parents have to do is make sure their children get the emails, and make sure their children can follow them. If my daughter doesn't get the work returned she will then have to follow up why not with each parent.

Ensuring that their child is educated and cared-for is the parents' responsibility- you'd not think so in her experience of some parents.

 

[tom73]

My daughter is a primary teacher- Year 3 this year.

She has spent hours since the announcement preparing home schooling videos for her children to follow and watch with hand-outs emailed out to each child according to their own abilities... it means she is a week ahead so far but imagine teaching 15 children, of essential workers, in class of varying ability and then sending out video recorded lessons with targeted handouts for the rest to maintain the curriculum.

The only thing the parents have to do is make sure their children get the emails, and make sure their children can follow them. If my daughter doesn't get the work returned she will then have to follow up why not with each parent.

Ensuring that their child is educated and cared-for is the parents' responsibility- you'd not think so in her experience of some parents.

Only last week I want past 2 parents talking about this one said "I'm happy to help the school out as much as I can but you can only to so much" I just thought you're not helping the school out your educating your children. Years of youth work I've long ago got use to many seeing it as cheep child care.

 

[cyberknight]

Fibre optic's different. I'm in a test area and usefully the main box is about 30 feet from my house so they started the installation process about 2 streets from me. For my work it's the upload speed that counts and 900MB both ways allows three of us, when SWMBO's at home, to stream/download/play stuff all at the same time. It's all piped round a 1GB mains network system I also put together last August.

no cable here it finishes about 5 miles away

 

[Brains]

One of the things this pandemic has really show up is the level of "digital poverty" in the UK.

It's not just people with very little money, it's older people who don't know how to use modern technology and a surprisingly large number of educated, fairly wealthy, people who up until now have seen no need for wifi or laptops at home.

There are a lot or organizations out there, both in the voluntary and business sectors who are having real issues with staff or clients without even the minimum level of internet access at home.

 

[fossyant]

One of the things this pandemic has really show up is the level of "digital poverty" in the UK.

It's not just people with very little money, it's older people who don't know how to use modern technology and a surprisingly large number of educated, fairly wealthy, people who up until now have seen no need for wifi or laptops at home.

There are a lot or organizations out there, both in the voluntary and business sectors who are having real issues with staff or clients without even the minimum level of internet access at home.

We've had a handful of staff with wifi/internet so bad we've bought them 4G "mifi" units.

I've seen loads in the press about families trying to manage off one small phone or tablet for 3-4 kids of school age.

 

[cyberknight]

We've had a handful of staff with wifi/internet so bad we've bought them 4G "mifi" units.

I've seen loads in the press about families trying to manage off one small phone or tablet for 3-4 kids of school age.

we are lucky as mini ck 1 was given a laptop anyway last year as everyone in his year gets one for schoolwork so he can do his work and mini ck 2 uses mine

 

[bikingdad90]

Im on night shift this week so today whilst mrs ck is at work im helping mini ck 2 year 4 do her work and trying to get mini ck 1 year 9 to do his assignments then off to work tonight for another 11 hour shift so hoping to get an hour or two nap before i go .Next week back on days i can see me helping again when i get home and handing in each lesson late as mrs ck is not what you would call the brightest match in the box ( thats not to put her down she has health issues that affect her cognitive abilities ) .
The issue next week is who looks after the kids when we are both at work? FIL is an option as it normally only for 4 or so hours and hes in our bubble .On nights i can be in bed whilst mrs ck goes so im here if anything goes wrong and its usually on for a couple of hours before i wake up to when mrs ck leaves.

You’ll need to think carefully about your childcare arrangements as whoever you choose will have to who you always rely on as you can’t chop and change, it has to be consistent to reduce the risk.

 

[lazybloke]

I'm just very relieved that the school provides proper supervised lessons via Teams.
Or to put it another way, I'm not cut from the same cloth as teachers.



I wish I had 900 Meg broadband, mind. Working from home today, and we're sharing 21 Meg between 4 people. Could be worse I suppose.

 

[cyberknight]

You’ll need to think carefully about your childcare arrangements as whoever you choose will have to who you always rely on as you can’t chop and change, it has to be consistent to reduce the risk.

it either stay at home or FIL

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I've just seen Seesaw that my 9yo Grandson has been given access to, it looks absolute rubbish, having to draw a text box to answer a question. I hope it's not being funded.