Peony

It must also be remembered a very long thread on this forum recently about children not wanting to do online dance classes and losing their drive and commitment. I commented on that thread actually, they’re not doing ballet classes Online. I think they are actually getting quite down and lacking in motivation generally because they haven’t seen friends since March and can’t do any of the things they enjoy. Ballet is harder at home because of lack of space and terrible floor. They don’t particularly like school and find it much easier to work at home. They hate the distraction of kids messing around etc. It’s a huge advantage to have to turn up somewhere at a specific time and for that attendance to be monitored. I can’t monitor constantly as I’m working. It’s quite interesting, I’ve been a bit surprised, certainly one of them would much prefer home school long term!

My child has Sen too- had an email saying she hadn’t done the work but nothing else! Although this has become a debate about on line teaching my point was that The statement that all schools have opened for keyworkers, all children have regular contact with school, all teachers are teaching and marking and providing feedback is just not true unfortunately. Ours is a ‘good’ school, (although many of us don’t get much of a choice due to availability and geographical location) and sounds like many others are doing better! They were a victim of the new funding formula so probably due essentially to underfunding. My children are fortunate I’m invested in their education and will prioritise it above most other things, I’m very worried for the poor kids not so fortunate and the growing divide. It’s not good for them and it’s not good for society as a whole.

The other issue with kids is that they are so often coughing and spluttering everywhere. I’ve seen kids in the waiting room quite obviously unwell but they’re still sent in. Do you think dancing in masks is an option?

I have the same issues with poor internet, if you turn off incoming video it helps considerably, or stagger the usage. I didn’t suggest that parents could all buy equipment and internet. School overheads are considerably less at the moment, ours do lend laptops and tablets. They fund 2 TAs only for all of learning support, I think they’re on furlough at the moment as they can’t really work from home. I’m not suggesting one size fits all. Actually our primary school are providing zoom lessons, makes it more frustrating the poor provision for GCSE. edited to add- actually looking back practically all parents who’ve commented are getting Live learning of some type so perhaps it’s just our school, which isn’t in a deprived area so probably should be following suit. Hopefully things will improve in September!

I absolutely haven’t as I’ve been at pains to point out all the way through all situations and schools are different. There aren’t many views from parents and children on here though. Access is a problem but not an insurmountable one. Access is also a problem if you provide only written information to everyone with poor literacy skills (unfortunately not uncommon and higher in deprived children) and certain SEN. We are hitting the most deprived in society the most, they are already disadvantaged and are becoming more so. We’re a rich nation, surely we can find some solution. I’ll leave it there but just want to say finally thank you to all our teaching staff and governors and others connected with schools working hard to improve things for our children, you are appreciated and missed greatly. It’s not criticism of you but of a system and society that is happy to see funding slashed and inequality increase

Also worth remembering that schools get an additional payment of £1000 per pupil per year (more for primary pupils)whose family is on low income specifically to help them access the curriculum.some schools already use that funding to purchase laptops for them

They all have a mobile phone Janet, it’s seen as essential, you are an outcast without one.. you can also dial in to webinars through a phone line without needing any internet I am a parent, I know lots and lots of parents at different schools. This whole attitude of can’t be done, we’ll just settle for doing nothing is infuriating. Please don’t deny my experience. This is having a terrible effect on our children, much worse than on adults. When offices needed to work from home, what happened? They provided mifi devices and laptops. Most schools do actually have a bank of tablets and laptops. Schools could easily accommodate 30% of pupils in school with social distancing. I’m never one to accept that something that isn’t working can’t improve, education is so vitally important and teachers skills in teaching so missed at the moment

Who recommended 1.5 metres, I’m not sure where 1metre has come from, as you say it is pretty close. Unless you’re in the supermarket and people like to be 6 inches away from you🙄 I think some gyms have set up screens between the equipment to get over the distancing problem. I would have thought with ballet the hazardous bit will be corner work and grand allegro. Both because of maintaining distance and heavy breathing/ coughing! Barre and centre work the teacher could have marked positions for people to stand?

I’ve had no calls and no personal emails, and the school shut to everyone. A lot of work is not even marked, a lot is just computer generated and marked quizzes. One core topic consists of reading internet articles and then answering computer marked quizzes. No teaching, no marking, no feedback. And this is GCSE level. Whilst I realise this is not representative of every school or indeed every subject teacher, some of us parents are not complaining for no reason... I think it was only 2% of the school population who took or were allowed to take keyworker/ vulnerable places, they were very heavily restricted in many areas, again some schools much better with this than others.

I disagree that the majority don’t have access to a device. Since lockdown many people have bought them as they’re necessary in a way they weren’t before. It’s been prioritised over other luxuries many of which aren’t available anyway- days out, holidays etc! I think we’re mainly talking about secondary schools for online learning, primary is a bit different and there would be lower numbers of phones and tablets. Some people will of course be on the bread line but also many parents will have a little extra money because they aren’t paying for school uniforms, transport to school etc. Parents also find change difficult and as a teacher I’m sure you’re well aware of who is doing the best they can and who is just not bothering. The ones who are not bothering or who have extreme difficulty accessing work probably just need to be in school rather than home learning?

But you can’t penalise the majority who could happily access remote learning. The video element is not required at all. A solution needs to be found for those who can’t access it at home, like provide school places to access the work. I would personally put those with turbulent home lives in the vulnerable category who should already be being encouraged into school. Which again some schools are doing a great job of but others have closed completely. We need to get a bit more creative if this is going to continue. I can’t find the national average for kids who have engaged with any home school but it’s pretty low isn’t it? Ours was 80% which was well above the average so that’s 20% of the school have done none whatsoever. Some school will have the majority of kids having done nothing since March. Perhaps we just need to concentrate all efforts on re-opening, I don’t know. Something needs to change because what we have isn’t working

Setting work is not teaching though. it’s boring and Unmotivating and not using teachers skills. I don’t understand why some are so adamantly against online teaching? Many private and some state schools are teaching a full timetable online, it’s difficult to understand why some schools are unable to provide anything? Pre-record material, use dial in via a phone, don’t enable video? Use a good interactive online program? Get the kids without internet into school in preference to others? If this is going to continue into the next academic year I think we urgently need to re-evaluate. and schools need extra funding to make it work. teaching and talking to people online is generally harder than face to face but it is something we need to get to grips with, or we need to think how we can get all children back into full time school.

Maybe dance teachers are a bit more motivated and able to find a solution because they are generally self employed?

You are definitely allowed to have someone in your own house if they are working for you, but whether you can travel to another location (studio/ hall etc) for your lesson I have no idea. All as clear as mud!

The provision is really pretty poor for many, but I don’t blame individual teachers for that. In some cases they’ve been told not to teach online. A huge amount of extra cash seems to have been summoned up for health care, we need to push for that for education. I haven’t written to my MP before but I feel that might have to change! Children have pretty much been forgotten in all of this

unfortunately this isn’t universal Ours has been shut since day 1 and no online lessons either, many have also heavily restricted key worker places. Which is not to say teachers aren’t working but many children are getting zero contact time with teachers which is what we’d all like to see come back! Teachers are very much missed! i don’t think a boarding school is ever going to be a closed system because staff will be coming and going, children might need to go home for various reasons, or to get medical treatment, or to have pointe shoe fittings etc. I guess they just need more time to plan how they will manage that risk, and how to react if they did get a case.

State secondary schools aren’t opening until at least September apart from maybe a few tutorials for year 10. I don’t think private secondaries are opening either

I don’t think anyone could argue that ballet is not very selective in the ‘look’ that is selected. Mid tone skin, preferably brown hair and eyes, slim, long legs, large eyes, very pretty. If you look at the royal ballet they are actually far more ethnically diverse than the population as a whole but they’re not in terms of how the dancers look really. It’s not only about shoe colours I think we need a re-evaluation of lighting, set design etc as currently dark tights and shoes are really difficult to see on stage.

You can also order grishko in any colour I believe.

I’ve always thought of tights and shoes being pink rather than skin tone- the traditional ones like freed are bright salmon pink. Their ballet brown and bronze are a far nicer colour in my opinion!

thank you for this, it does help. It looks unlikely we’ll be back before September (which would mean 51/2 months off), unless maybe summer classes are offered. Are you expected to have any special measures in place in your classes where you are? One of them has totally lost all enthusiasm for ballet at all and is saying she doesn’t want to go back. I think her teacher would be rather upset if she knew this ☹️ The classes aren’t live so their presence isn’t missed as such. I feel that she’s a bit rude not to even try but on the other hand all control on her life has been taken away and perhaps this is one of the few things that she can still have control over. thus I’ve just left it now, it’s good news that perhaps it won’t be a total disaster when classes start again!

I do agree with you. However, my kids are still refusing to do any online classes at all, they just don’t really enjoy, I don’t really want to have to feed that back ☹️

Thanks for all the advice, I ordered the interlocking tiles, so will report back about how slippery they are!

Has anyone found anything to use over carpet?

ballet really needs a good floor and lots of space. As much as I try and enthuse about home classes it’s just not that great on your own clinging onto a chair at hip height and trying to make you feet move on carpet! My kids have got even less enthusiasm for taking online class than me which makes me sad but it’s bad enough overseeing the school work and getting them to tidy up occasionally without adding ballet to the must dos🤣 I’m leaving them be, hopefully they’ll be back in the studio soonish!