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Wednesday 25 March 2020

Thoughts on "Home-learning"

Schools are closed and many of us are cooped up in our homes with our children.
Miss Busy doing yoga as set by her teacher
That's no bad thing.  We all lead over-busy lives, racing around from activity to activity.  While nobody wants this Coronavirus and we all wish it would go away, while nobody wants to be forced to stay indoors and not be able to work (and for many people - earn money), this time of enforced confinement may be the reset button they were looking for in their lives.  It's certainly a time for us to re-establish a connection with our children.  

Most of us leave the children's education to school.  We occasionally glance at or support homework, and we turn up at parents' evening, but we aren't really involved with their learning - that's school's job, right?  Now we are being asked to support and guide our children through all their learning tasks for a protracted amount of time.  Many schools are trying to support the parents and continue managing the task of educating by providing work each day and asking the children/parents to submit it.  As parents, how do we manage this?

First, I think it's important to remember that you are the parent and you know your child.  You have a few options here:
1) stick to the school timetable, or create your own strict timetable.  Use the school's materials or some you have provided or sourced yourselves.  You can either work with your child, ensure your child understands the task and supervise them, or rely on your child to stick to the timetable.
2) use the materials the school has provided, or materials of your own, but throw the timetable out of  the window.  Opting instead for a "as long as you get everything on the list done, you choose how long to work on it and when to do it" attitude.  This works well with children who are largely independent, but you can also encourage children to come to you for specific tasks or if they need help.
Miss Busy helped me out by trialling an activity I set for my Year 2 class.
3)  Ignore any "formal" learning materials.  Take this time to connect with your child, trust that they will fall into a natural rhythm and that they will be learning through living.  Encourage creative activities, but don't be too hung up on curriculum or formal lessons.  If you are following this option, you should let your school know your intentions.  During this time of shut-down there is nothing to stop you doing things your own way, but teachers, who are working hard to provide and follow up on set work will be concerned about you and your children if they don't hear anything.

They are also working on the 30 day lego challenge
I've personally gone for option 2.  My children are independent enough that they know how to access the work that school has set and are keen to complete it.  The main rule is that they must do these activities before they play any computer games or watch TV, but they can do them in any order and I encourage regular breaks.  We are only on day 3 but already the way they work has evolved.  To begin with, Miss Busy was trying hard to stick to normal school hours of working.  However, I noted that she was sneaking on to games on the computer in between school activities because she had finished them in less than the allotted time.  When I pointed out that she didn't need to wait until "the lesson was over" before moving on, and that she could start before 9am if she wanted to, she was liberated.  This morning she started at 7am, got all her school tasks done by 10am, played on the computer for an hour, made the lunch, and is now playing in the garden.  
Miss Busy's portrait of Henry VIII
Mr Build-it has loved the independence to work through tasks at his own pace and has very much enjoyed e-mailing his work to his teacher.  Today, however, he was traumatised by a music task which involved singing, and encouraged children to submit a video of them singing a song.  I tried to assure him that this was not compulsory and that nobody would even know if he had sung the song or not, but he felt that if school had set the task, be must complete it, even if he hates having photos taken or singing where people can hear him (despite the fact that he has a lovely singing voice and is happy to play the piano to an audience!).  There were many tears and he put off starting any of the school work for some time, to evade getting to the point where he needed to do the music.

So how to manage this process when you are also supposed to be working from home:

Steps to success:
  • make sure your child has somewhere to work / concentrate / focus on whatever activities they are doing and the tools they need - sharp pencils, rubber, ruler, pens, art material, access to computer etc.
  • check in with your child regularly to ensure that they know what they are doing, help them if they don't.  Depending on your child, it may be a good idea to have them working next to you as you will be able to help them focus.
  • Ensure they take a break.  If they are struggling to focus, they need a change of activity, a breather or a snack.  In school they will be regularly moving from talk-partners to independent work, from carpet (whole class) to desk, snack time, assembly etc.  Up to year 3 they rarely sit still for more than about 20-30 minutes at a time.
  • Once their fixed "work" is done, celebrate!  Whether this is by taking photos of the work to send to the teacher, sharing it with Gran via a video call, having an hour to play on the computer or a star on a chart.
  • After this formal learning is done, make the time to spend at least an hour doing something with your children, whether this is a new hobby, gardening, housework, playing a board or computer game, reading, playing Lego, an exercise DVD or something completely different.  Spend time together and show that you value their company.

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