Scotland’s education secretary John Swinney last night made a Zoom call to some 3,000 parents as they grilled him on plans for coming out of the coronavirus lockdown.
The vast array of education experiences families have had while schools have been closed was underlined to Mr Swinney - who is also deputy first minister - in a series of snap polls of those tuning in to the event run by the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NFPS).
When asked if their children’s school had provided live or recorded online lessons, for example, 67 per cent of those who responded to this question said “no”.
Background: Year of blended learning ‘absolutely not’ the plan
Coronavirus: ‘Nicola Sturgeon blew her chance to take the focus off exams’
Learning at home: Families ‘desperate’ for live teaching, survey finds
When parents were asked to list their top three concerns about the return to school, the most common was “not enough face-to-face time with teachers” (69 per cent of 2,270 responses), followed by “I will struggle to balance life and school” (57 per cent).
On the #parentsasktheDFM hashtag, one of the most liked tweets was from a mother who said she had been “disappointed” with the amount of detail Mr Swinney shared. She raised concerns about inconsistent approaches across Scotland “in number of lessons, teacher time [and] time in school”.
Another common complaint was that Mr Swinney too often “batted the responsibility back onto individual schools and local authorities”, as one respondent put it.
When asked about the 2021 Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams - which teaching unions have said should be cancelled - he stated simply: “We plan that the 2021 exams will go ahead.”
The NPFS, meanwhile, said it had been “inundated” with questions about additional support needs (ASN).
This morning, the NPFS told Tes Scotland that the final number of parents registered to attend was 4,919, and that the number joining the session last night peaked at just over 3,000.
The entire NPFS session with Mr Swinney, which lasted more than an hour and a half, is now available to view on YouTube.
