About

In this episode of the Teachers’ Podcast, Claire reflects on her initial experiences educating her children in the early days of the national lockdown. Despite the huge changes to our way of life, many parents are looking to keep their children entertained while still getting some form of education. Claire talks about how she has tried to make a start with this for her own children. Claire discusses how her expectations of what home-schooling would look like contrasted with the reality and how, even with a teaching background, the challenges of educating at home are notably different to those within a school. For parents up and down the country, providing some form of education for their children will be a concern. As every family is different, there will likely be a variety of unique challenges and issues parents will be facing such as sourcing activities for children of different ages while trying to build in routines to also allow working from home. Claire considers the challenges she has already encountered, what has been successful and what has not gone to plan, and shares some helpful tips and advice which could be of use to others. KEY TAKEAWAYS Teaching at home is not the same as teaching in school. School is a very different environment to the home and it is not at all unusual for children to behave and react differently between the two places. While some aspects might be able to work in a similar way, the home cannot hope to replicate school. To compound this further, everything about our current situation is new for everyone. Parents, as well as the children, are having to adjust to a totally new way of life and, for the moment at least, we are all just trying to catch up and do our best in an unfamiliar landscape. Things won’t always go ‘right’, and that’s okay. Having children of different ages brings its own challenges. In terms of providing some form of education, children of different ages, and those who are different school years, will need work pitched at (sometimes significantly) different levels of challenge. This can be tricky for teachers let alone parents who don’t have as clear an understanding of the curriculums. Here it can be very useful to make use of resources the school has provided and other materials available more widely (see below). For families with siblings where one child is quite young, there could well be the additional complication of competition for attention to consider. Looking at timetabling might help for scheduling work between naps if this is possible. Don’t be afraid to adjust your expectations. Plans for how timetables might work, and how home-learning will go, may need to be changed – even on a daily basis. This happens in schools too where unexpected things occur and lessons or activities need to be reorganised. It is not unusual to find that expectations of what children might be able to do or accomplish need to be adjusted as well. Some activities are going to be over really quickly, prove too challenging or just take much longer than anticipated. On top of this, with the home environment being quite different to school, children’s attention spans and focus will likely be different. If you can, make use of what’s available online. There are a lot of resources available online for parents which many people and companies are providing for free. Online resources can be useful in many ways: they will probably be pitched reasonably accurately or will be focused on the topics your child will have covered, and some websites will give parents a quick introduction to the terminology and methods schools use which can be different to ways that were covered in the past. A number of celebrities are also providing live video lessons or putting content online for children and parents to use at home. While these celebrity resources have been met with some criticism from some quarters, they can be useful as they give your child a chance to hear from someone different, but who is still likely be a familiar face. These are unprecedented times and it’s new for everyone. It is important to remember that, at the moment, everyone is going a day at a time trying to make things work as best as they can. There has been a huge change that we have had to adapt to incredibly quickly. If things don’t go as expected, don’t be hard on yourself. Look for the positives. In and amongst the difficult circumstances we are facing, there is an opportunity to make some great memories with your children. When they are older, these times at home will be something they remember. If we can give them fun and positive experiences to remember, it will be time well spent. In the same way as schools are doing with the wider curriculum, alongside maths and English activities, this is a great time to try and boost creative work such as junk modelling for art or making music out of household items. Another positive to be mindful of is how this experience is bringing out the best in the online world through a ‘community spirit’ of individuals posting in a number of parent support groups offering help or advice and swapping of ideas and suggestions. If you need help, you don’t have to look far. Don’t worry too much about structure. Any change can be unsettling, particularly for children so adjustment to new routines at home will take time. Don’t feel bad if this doesn’t always work or feels like it never quite settles down. Parents will likely have everything else they would normally do too – including working from home – as well as looking after and educating their children, so plans will need to be ‘flexible’ anyway. VALUABLE RESOURCES Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk/ Coronavirus Home Learning Support for Teachers and Parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/coronavirushomelearning/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/ ABOUT THE HOST Claire Riley Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide. Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff. Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.