Homeschooling during lockdown

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Mim Telfer
Homeschooling
8 January 2021

We are back in lockdown, and this time, many pupils are required to stay at home.  Children and parents alike will have mixed feelings about this news!  We have put together some ideas on how to ease the at homeschooling week!

Prepare

Teachers’ will tell you, the success of any lesson is linked directly to the preparation involved.  Decide on your homeschooling area; this could be the breakfast bar, dining table, children’s desk, and even lap trays on the sofa work.

Set out all the materials for the session such as paper, pencils and load up any websites the children may need on the laptop.  Make sure sharpeners, glue etc. is to hand, and this will keep children on task and mean you’re not running finding resources last minute.

The activity you set up will attract the children to participate and give a clear signal that it is time to learn.

Prioritise

The core subjects (Literacy and numeracy) should be your priority, with other subjects the icing on the cake.  Do not put yourself under pressure to teach the entirety of the national curriculum!

Schools will be prioritising their support of the core subjects to you, but no doubt, including other topics in packs or online resources.  Do your best to get the children to cover the basics, and this will keep up your patience levels and energy reserves!

Time

Be realistic about how much time you can give to homeschooling.  Remember, one hour of your undivided attention is a lot more than they will be receiving in a day at school.  This is not to say your children’s time is wasted as they will be learning other valuable skills during their time in the class. Still, no primary teacher can give each pupil 1 – 2 hours of one to one time.

Try and work a schedule for your homeschooling, for example, 8 – 10 a.m. each day.  It’s always best to get the work out of the way to allow for a more relaxed rest of the day. This is especially true of you have the tricky job of working from home at the same time.

Get out get active

Each day, if you can try and get a bit of time out of the house as a family.  Fresh air no matter what the weather lifts the spirits.  Go to the playground or take a ball to the field for a 10-minute kick about.

Play observational games on your walk, such as ‘I spy’ or ’20 questions’.  Playing games is especially helpful if you’re on familiar routes each day which can get boring.

You can try some PE and home in the garden or living room.  There are lots of resources to support PE at home, including our problem-solving booklet.

Problem Solving Booklet

Click here to download our Problem Solving Booklet

Good is good enough

Be kind to yourself and your children.  Families around the world are expected to do something they never imagined, and this can cause a strain on parents and children.

When we look for perfection in ourselves and others, we are sure to fail.  If we look for good, we are more likely to succeed.

Do your best, and that is good enough.  Praise your children’s progress rather than expecting them to get everything ‘right’ all the time.  Praise your progress, try and learn from approaches that don’t work with your children and do more of what does.

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