AIBU that DS's school is not doing enough during these away from school days?

[Ohlife2020]

Honestly, I would not have thought to complain about it until into week 6 of the lockdown.

School has sent a pack of worksheet back home before the lockdown started - about 100 pages including writing topics, maths and some grammar learning. Then started from wk1, work/learning is sent through via Google Classroom every Mon, Wed, Fri. It covers maths, literacy, science, PE (with Joe Wicks), Computing (only once) and some other small subjects.

We initially found it overwhelming to keep up. But by wk6, it's getting clear that the school doesn't expect everyone to keep on track. They kept sending weekly emails to parents reassuring us that they understand homeschooling is stressful so take it easy. But when we hand in any work online, there's no feedback whatsoever. I've also heard other school having teachers ringing pupils to check progress or to have ZOOM calls to keep in touch with the children. His school has no intention to do either. They say "it might upset certain children"...

So literally, we are left alone to fend ourselves. The homeschooling has been going downhill, as his concentration and motivation are both suffering. I battled with him nearly everyday on nearly every single subject - he either didn't want to do anything else other than what he likes (e.g. reading non-fiction) or he felt too frustrated /hurt when I told him his work needed improvement. I realised I might have taken this too seriously, but he's not a self-motivated type. If you let him, he would be happy just do the minimal. So our relationship has suffered quite a bit. This makes me feel angry that the school has been doing so little.

Am I being unreasonable? They are teachers and it's their responsibility to keep the children on track or at least care about it?

Being disconnected from their teacher/school for such a long time and with no end to be seen in near future, I can't imagine what impact this gave to him underneath the surface.

I realised this is a bit long, probably most for a rant purely...as I feel I'm reaching the limit and cannot carry on like this. Exhausted and hurt...

kahra this thread is 2 months old. I expect OP has given up now!

@kahra,

Thank you! That's very sweet of you!

I haven't given up (won't give up for him). I eased off the study overtime. We stopped following rigid schedule which just didn't work for him. School sent his teacher to call in a couple of times after I reached out to them. But still, I didn't get the feeling his teacher really cares about that much. (He never marked his submitted writings. Not even once even with the free writings he put efforts in.)

So in the end, I went elsewhere for aspirations. I started signing up Zoom classes @ outschool. It's not free. But with the right balance of the contents (lots of science topics which he deeply enjoys), he's become a loooot happier. Not only because he's learning lots of cool science stuff, but the classes have given him a sense of belonging to a group. He sees the same teacher (who he really likes) a couple of times a week.

Since then, there's fewer battles on everything. I also changed the strategy. We only do either maths or literacy but not both in the same day. This way, his focus is less disrupted and could be slightly more productive.

We have just dedicated nearly four entire weeks practice writing through a program at Outschool. It was hard. But by the end if the 4th week, his confidence has certainly gone up a level and he's not too dreaded of coming up with ideas to write anymore. Even though he still moans and drags his feet, but he learned the tools that help him to get the basic done. We then spent some time to catch up with the online homework assigned by the school. Because we are doing by chunks on one topic, things moved a lot faster and I think we will catch up with all works by the end of this week.

If anything, I personally highly recommend Outschool. You do have to pay for each class, but I regard them replacements of the numerous after school clubs DS was doing before the lockdown. And the benefit on his wellbeing is immense.

Thank you for sharing the links! Depending on the parenting styles and the child's temperament, homeschooling can be felt differently in different families. In our case, it's more than schedules and online teaching games/videos. The sense of belonging and learning with peers made a big difference.

Weekly emails? Wow.

DB is a SEN secondary school teacher & has been putting in 2 hours daily as required. & That's it. Parents aren't getting weekly emails.