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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask if anyone else is actually home schooling their kids?

208 replies

candyflossicecream · 23/04/2020 01:38

I feel like the only one! People keep telling me "oh they'll catch up" "have some fun" i'm trying my hardest to keep them on track, entertained and keep them away from the tv, devices, etc.
Ps. We are having fun. I just keep getting made to feel like an arsehole for teaching my kids things and it's disheartening 😔

OP posts:
BrieAndChilli · 23/04/2020 13:28

Luckily I’ve been furloughed, the couple of weeks where me and DH were both trying to WFH plus supervise 3 kids doing school work was a nightmare. Plus we only had PC for the kids to use so we’re all arguing over who was using it. MIL and SIL bought us a laptop and we bought another so all 3 kids now have access to a computer for school work at the same time.
We have a loose routine now

All 3 kids do school set work in the morning - DS2 in year 4 is using google classroom, my maths and various other apps/sites. I sit with him and guide him/keep him on track. They have a topic (currently pick a country to work on) and then various tasks within that topic eg make a tourism brochure, research and compare basket of groceries between that country and the U.K., recreate a piece of art, etc etc
The older 2 (year 7 and 8) are using teams and my maths, each subject teacher is setting them work which they do and submit for feedback.
Then we have lunch then we do something in the afternoon - science experiment, crafts, film, board games, cooking crafts, gardening etc. All good ways to learn skills, practice maths, comprehension, etc

midnightstar66 · 23/04/2020 13:35

Yes, well the teachers have really but I've been supporting it. We've had a full programme enough for a full school day and more since schools closed

midnightstar66 · 23/04/2020 13:39

If you look at threads on here actual homeschoolers do little academic work daily, and seem to catch up for gcse/go to college

Home schooled kids will continue to be schooled that way though until they are ready for that stage. The rest are going to have to go back in to a formal school setting in the coming months, and the ones who didn't do anything will be behind the ones that did.

FourTeaFallOut · 23/04/2020 13:40

It will be much harder for those wfh or with several DC of different ages

Yes, we have a yr1, yr6 and a yr8. It helps that both dh and I have been furloughed because otherwise it would be far more difficult and I think we'd have to do things differently.

midnightstar66 · 23/04/2020 13:43

Mine are p2 and p6. Thankfully my p2 is very independent and finds the work easy so she can just get on as my dyslexic p6 needs a massive amount of support

emmaw1405 · 23/04/2020 13:51

I've got five children - one in year 8, two in year 5 and two in year 3. The 13yr old sorts herself out. The other four get set 3 pieces of work each on DB primary.

Most of the time I'm sat next to them for any help and am also trying to work from home myself as well as fit in Skype, Zoom meetings etc. It's hard going but I'm determined to make sure they do work each day otherwise they would just watch tv, going into Saturday and Sunday if needed.

Three of the primary school age I think would catch up easily but one of the year 5s really has to be pushed to do anything!

Fluffybutter · 23/04/2020 13:56

@Ellisandra because that’s all they talk and post about so therefore I find it doubtful.
Just another form of strange parent bragging.

elliejjtiny · 23/04/2020 14:01

Yes but really struggling with it.

CountFosco · 23/04/2020 15:30

I've got 3DC and DH and I are both key workers. Not frontline so we both work from home. I'm in pharma and work is mega busy, everyone is chasing treatments for Covid-19 and managing work remotely takes much longer than normal. DH and I are working shifts round each other but I constantly have calls in 'his' work time so end up working long hours and a very early start.

The eldest is Y7, very conscientious and is getting stressed and upset by the volume of work. School computer system is shite so 3 weeks in we're still having technical problems and the teachers are not giving much feedback on the work. She is struggling the most with this situation. We have tears at least once a day. Not doing the work is not really an option though, she just needs more maturity than she has at the moment to cope and that will only come with time.

The younger two are fine, primary school is excellent and seem to have a good amount of work, and teachers are giving lots of feedback. My Y6 just gets on with things and has her own little routine planned based on her normal school timetable. Y2 needs supervision but if he sits down and works it doesn't take long so he is doing lots of board games and physical activity (rollerskating is the latest obsession) as well which is fine.

But DH and I are shattered and the house is a tip (missing my lovely cleaner a lot!).

TeacupDrama · 23/04/2020 15:39

my DD is 10 and in P6 (Y5 in England) she does google classroom and anything else set my teacher normally about 6 tasks
she is good at Maths and finishes it in about 10 minutes at school she would have individual extension work, they have a literacy task
then read for 30 minutes
something topic related current;y WWII often a BBC bitesize podcast or video with some reflective questions
30 minutes with Jo Wickes, 30 minutes drawing or other art task and something random, yesterday it was find 10 red things in your house/garden
she starts at 9 and is mostly finished by 11-11.30 ( she is bright and self motivated) she has learnt that actual school work doesn't take from 9-3
I encourage her to watch an educational thing on iplayer like David attenborough or do some of her own topic which she is self directing until lunch at 1pm, then after lunch she plays in garden or does craft till 3.30 when she would normally be home then she is allowed to what's app friends play roblox etc we are very fortunate to have very large garden so mostly our exercise is done at home

CoronaIsComing · 23/04/2020 15:54

We are. We’re lucky though that we have one, very conscientious year 6 DS who has his own lap top. We’re both WFH and my job is pretty flexible. DH works upstairs in his office and me and DS work downstairs at the kitchen table so I’m always there for him but can still work.

DS is going to a top Grammar School in September so he can’t afford to fall behind. He’s also loving expanding his learning and has discovered an obsession with maths and science. He’s even chosen a future career; biomedical scientist in the Royal Navy (I’m sure this will change but it’s nice to have a goal!)

DS’s day looks like this:

9:00 Joe Wicks
9:30 year 6 maths set by school the corresponding (ish) year 8 maths from CGP book.
10:00 Glasgow Science Centre Science video and small experiment.
10:30 break
10:45 spelling she’d
11:00 English
11:30 Reading
12:00 lunch
1:00 Topic (WW2), personal study (the armed forces), music, art, coding (all set by school).
2:00 times table rockstars, DuoLingo Spanish, Purple Mash, check google classroom and answer daily questionnaire.
3:00 finish ‘school’ and go on minecraft until me and DH finish, then we go for a walk/ bike ride.

This week he’s also done an online first aid course and a lot of stargazing!

Ds’s teacher sets and marks work on Google Classroom and is in touch with children all day. She’s been amazing as usual and from what I can see on Google Classroom, most children are doing the work. The sad fact is that if they aren’t, they’ll be miles behind when they go back/ to their high schools.

It really annoys me when people say that, by home educating, you are damaging your child or lying. DS is loving life and learning right now!

CoronaIsComing · 23/04/2020 15:55

@TeacupDrama why not buy her the year 6 CGP book on Amazon? Then she can work through the equivalent year 6 work when she’s finished her year 5 work.

AnneElliott · 23/04/2020 16:39

DS is doing to tasks set by school on google classroom but it's no where near a full school day. 1-2 hours at most.

I'd love to home school properly but I'm doing 14/15 hour days as am a civil servant with finance responsibilities.

I give DS an hour in between dinner and me going back on the laptop and try and support anything he needs help with. Luckily he's bright and and above average but terribly lazy.

But in all honesty my work takes priority at the moment. I wish it didn't but it does.

edwinbear · 23/04/2020 16:47

Yes, DC are Y3 and Y6 and have a full timetabled day of online lessons. The Y3 has just finished online PE. I'm finding it so much easier to work now they are in actual lessons all day, rather than me having to try and entertain them like I did during the holidays.

Itsacakebaby · 23/04/2020 16:57

DD11 (Year 7). We've been doing some work each day but she is not motivated in the slightest.. The school say she should be aiming to do between 3-4 hours a day but unfortunately that's not happening. I don't mind admitting that today I've been in tears and wanted to just say "F%$k it" but I know that it's not really the best thing to do. 😢. Sorry, just having a crap day.

Mittens030869 · 23/04/2020 17:07

Unfortunately we're not doing a lot of homeschooling. My DH does his best but he has to work full-time whist I'm still very unwell, coping with what's almost certainly COVID-19 so I'm having to self-isolate. So they're doing educational work on the computer recommended by the school and my DH encourages them as much as he can when he has time.

So we just have to accept that this is how things are for now. Hopefully I'll get better soon and be able to spend time supervising them, but it's definitely not possible right now.

I'm hoping a return to school, at least part-time, will be possible after half-term. Because this is so far from ideal for our DDs.

TeacupDrama · 23/04/2020 17:09

@coronalscoming she has has teejay maths book from school which is harder but quite boring ie pages of sums its an old textbook to bridge gap between P7 and S1 from 1990's
I could teach her harder maths myself but then she might end up being bored the whole of next year as she is ahead of class so i'm encouraging more literacy work she is above average but not streaks ahead like Maths and to study herself; she has wanted to do volcanos for ages so she is building a giant papier mache volcano around a pop bottle we might stretch it do doing why people still chose to live near volcanos ie Naples and go into history of Pompeii too but she has to do it while we work from home so my input is in minutes not hours

Mintjulia · 23/04/2020 17:15

We are. Ds’s school has good on-line facilities and has posted material for the whole of the summer term. We started before Easter doing one piece of work a day, 7 days a week, which worked for him.
Now Easter is over he does four 45 minute bits of work each morning. With faffing in between that means 9 - 1. We do some exercise most afternoons or a cycle ride in the evening. He spend the rest of his time playing MineCraft, chatting to friends or watching tv while I work.

It’s not perfect but it’s a reasonable compromise.

flirtygirl · 23/04/2020 17:53

Nope have never home schooled my child and never will.

I'm a home educator. My 10 year old has never been to school. However for the lock down she has been taking a long break. She has refused to work mainly as at the start of the lock down, I was ill, then the Easter hols and we were meant to restart this week but she seems to be working on union rules and is working to rule. Yes she reads about these things.
She is sick of the management (aka mum)

Our normal day is 2 or 3 hours of education spread out or nothing all day and something done in the evening, sometimes she opens a book at 10pm.

So yes we are those home edders who maintain an education, on a few hours per day basis. Usually we do days out etc so work would be done another time for that. Its very unstructured.

But school thrives on structure and standardisation because they have so many children to teach. I have 2 children but one just does online courses that interest her, as has finished education and then been left as has autism but nothing in this area to let her do anything. Not able to get a job due to her autism but is bright and engaged yet lacking comprehension, impulsive, lacking common sense and easily overwhelmed by sensory overload, prone to melt downs etc. She also has add.

So only 1 child to help to learn. I say help to learn as I don't do much active teaching except for maths. We have mostly covered English rules. So now it's all about comprehension and developing analytical skills in English. Maths is our most actively taught lesson. Humanities and science are more discussion based. Science is alot of reading and observation. She is past the type of experiments easily done at home. I have been looking for a science club for some time, to no avail.

I do do some teaching but more and more I facilitate, as she is getting older. But it was great teaching her to read and write. Watching how she rapidly got it, reading age of 13, at age 6. Maths well she maintains she hates maths but we do it more often than English this year, as she is so ahead in English. We have done so many topics and for one more year will do a broad range of subjects/topics and from age 13 we will start to look at gcse and btec topics. Will also look at vocational skills, some colleges take children from year 10.

She is bilingual. Unfortunately now divorced as my husband contribution to home ed was to teach her to read and write a second language. I will get her a language tutor as she is still quite fluent but she has forgotten many of the written language rules and I cannot teach her them.

But for now I'm slacking off more than usual, if she does an hour or 30 mins per day then so be it.

BlackeyedSusan · 23/04/2020 18:16

Not following any school work but still home edding one. The other one is following school set work independently. Both autistic and responding in different ways.

MinorArcana · 23/04/2020 21:31

I am trying to homeschool my DC.

1 in yr4, 1 in yr1, 1 in nursery.

The older 2 won’t do any schoolwork unless they’ve got an adult sitting with them, and also start winding each other up if they’re sat next to each other.

DC3 doesn’t have formal work set, as he’s in nursery, but as he’s 3, he needs more supervision when playing than DC1 & DC2, and he usually wants to be playing in the garden, rather than inside where I can keep an eye on him while making sure his siblings work, so. I feel like I need at least 3 of me to keep on top of the homeschooling plus all the normal household stuff.

It’s not going all that well. I’m stressed and concerned that I can’t get the DC to do enough. DC1 particularly, as he’s already behind at school.

The DC’s school have also been sharing photos / videos of pupils work, which is making it very clear that some of my DC’s classmates are doing a lot more work at home than my DC are. Difficult for me to tell how representative that is of their classes though.

Rainbowb · 23/04/2020 22:00

My dd is year three and her teacher is sending quite a lot of work through each day. I am still working as a key worker so some days she’s at school and they do the work with her on those days which takes the pressure off a little. The rest of the time I struggle with keeping up with the work the teacher sends. I seem to be having to teach her things from scratch and it’s hard when she’s not interested and fidgeting and moaning constantly. We seem to argue from the moment she gets up til when she goes to bed, it’s not just the school work, it’s everything- she won’t get dressed, won’t go out in the sunshine and exercise, won’t settle at bedtime. I am so exhausted- life is purgatory at the moment. We are getting the work done but it’s so hard.

Susanna85 · 23/04/2020 22:04

Nope. Not much homeschooling at all. DC is 5.

We've done lots of baking, gardening, stories, drawing etc.
Probably too much screen time though.

PumpkinPie2016 · 23/04/2020 22:25

My son is 6 and we are doing some school work each day. We have been doing what school have set (mainly maths/literacy/phonics) plus some extra with the relevant CGP books.

School have sent a topic map so we will do some of the art/geography activities as well.

We have been reading anyway but we do that normally. Then things like daily walk and baking.

It's hard because I am working from home but I don't want him to fall behind.

pourmeanotherglass · 23/04/2020 22:35

Nope. Year 12 DC working independently because teaching A level further maths is outside of my skill set. Year 11 DC hasn't really got any meaningful work to do. DH and are are both working full time.
I have huge admiration for those of you that are managing to home school while trying to work from home, it must be so challenging.