To not do any schoolwork with DC at all?

[HomeSchoolingDodger]

NC as I expect to be completely castigated!

DC is in Yr5, above average in terms of reading, spelling and maths. Just had another excellent school report again. Not behind at all.

School have been posting weekly activities for DC in each year group to do on their website with a small project each week. Work is not handed in but DC ‘can’ bring some of the work into school after lockdown so teacher can look through it.

DC did a bit in the first few weeks but quickly lost interest as he needs class stimulation really and didn’t see the point in doing it if it doesn’t need to be handed in each week and tbh I can’t be arsed to chase him!

I am planning to start getting him into ‘school mode’ on the last few weeks before school goes back by completing all the work set then so we have a timescale and motivation to complete it

AIBU?

He is currently learning a lot from Animal Crossing, which involves setting up home, debts, loans, so he tells me . We also do a daily bike ride or walk, he helps me cook, looks after loads of seedlings we’ve planted for veg, reads, plays Articulate, Monopoly and Mexican dominoes with us.

They dont teach new stuff just recap so its boring for the kids

Complete rubbish.

ALL of Y7 ds’s subjects have introduced brand new topics since Easter. New concepts have been taught by Video tutorials, PDFs, lots of practice.

Algebra in Maths. Shakespeare in English. Forces in Science. The Tudors in History. Lots more...all new stuff that they’ve not done before.

There are going to be kids in ds’s year starting Year 8 in September who won’t understand a basic Algebra expression, never mind the more advanced stuff they’ve moved onto - because they’ll have missed an entire terms work and the whole introduction to Algebra.

These will be the kids who end up in bottom set Maths in Year 8 while teachers repeat the basics with them.

The impact of doing no work will probably be less at primary level but will still be very much noticible to teachers I imagine.

If you think doing zero set work for months will make no difference to your dc’s long term outcomes - or that baking cakes and growing carrots makes up for it - you’re kidding yourself. And putting your dc in a very vulnerable position when they return.

Are you serious @EvolvingElle? That's amazing! Your kids are very blessed to be receiving such an amazing lockdown education. I was speaking from my experience of having primary kids, like the OP. I thought only private schools were teaching new things.

Play I’ve got one in Y5 in primary and the work set is much more general - they have introduced fractions and percentages but at a very basic level which won’t be hard to catch up i imagine. Most of the work is more skill based rather than ‘new’ though. Practicing expressive writing and reading comprehension where the actual subject isn’t all that important.

At secondary though I assumed all schools would be continuing to move through topics as normal. Ds1’s definitely is with the only exception being art which has completely dropped off the map (to ds1’s delight 😂). Just a standard state comp and using Google classrooms, no zooms or anything. But seeing the amount of work he’s done in the past 2 months I can’t imagine how far behind those who’ve done nothing will be when they go back.

It’s a bit shocking TBH that you’re a SAHM and not even trying to help your son’s education. Just don’t be surprised when he goes back and a lot of children have overtaken him. Believe me, not all of us are ‘pretending’ that our DCs are working as a PP suggests, I resent that at DS (year 6) has worked from 9-3 every weekday of lockdown with a break and lunch time. He’s done a huuuuuge amount of work and it’ll be noticeable when he goes back. If the work is boring him, try some year 6 work.

I am concerned about the skill gap too. Some of the kids wont have done any work, or spoken any English for months. Some will have done loads. I wish the schools would open again! You should be very proud of your kids and yourself for keeping motivation and doing the work Elle.

Piss poor effort if you're at home anyway really. You cant motivate 1 child but expect the teacher to motivate him alongside a class full after he's done nothing for months?

Shocking parenting
And yet the teacher bashing on here continues unabated.

Where are all these stressed kids I keep reading about? My kids are fucking delighted with life right now. I have no idea how I’ll get them back to school/nursery when the time comes.

That’s no reflection on me/my parenting by the way. They are lazy wee monkeys who love to potter around at home.

Same here Welcome.

My older 2 are missing sports - but generally they’re very relaxed and don’t seem stressed or worried at all, despite doing full ‘school’ days.

Yes, you should do more. I'd focus on maths and English to keep things simple. Use BBC Bitesize, follow the work the school is sending home. Because he will need to know how to divide numbers in the thousands, and convert between fractions and decimals and percentages, and do multistep word problems, etc. Some stuff just has to be taught, and sadly it's kinda up to you right now to make it happen. Reading is brilliant and absolutely key, but make sure he's doing some writing, too. Maybe a creative story?

YANBU; you get to do what your family can manage in the current circumstances. It sounds as though your DS isn't at all motivated by the remote learning set by school and is only interested in taking part if there's some sort of recognition in it for him. In some ways I think it's a shame that he doesn't seem to be using any of this time off school to find things that do challenge him or to get his teeth into some sort of independent learning but there is value in not causing conflict in the home too.

If he was in my Y5 class, I wouldn't mind that he wasn't doing the work I'd been setting but I'd be worried that a bright pupil who had doing well at school before lockdown was becoming completely dependent upon the company of others in order to engage with anything other than gaming and that the prolonged period away from school was undermining his independence as a learner. I'd be concerned that his ability to focus on anything academic had deteriorated and that he might find the Y6 expectations of increased independence hard. I'd also worry about the impact this might have on his self-esteem if he were to return to school without having done anything only to discover that children he considered to be less capable than him had overtaken him because they are more self-motivated. He may not be bothered by that but for some children, the unexpected loss of status would be hard to process.

DD2 is in Y6 and isn't really doing what her teacher has set her but that's because everything's online and our wifi can't cope with the demand. Her school is very flexible about expectations for work at the moment so we've agreed with her teacher that DD2 will work from maths textbooks that I have borrowed from my school and I'll teach her English using my own plans etc. She is dipping into the other suggested learning but adapting things and doing her own thing e.g. using Duolingo to practise the language they learn at school but has also started learning Italian, is teaching herself the piano and following YouTube tutorials to learn how to paint using watercolors. She plans her own day but knows maths and English should be on the timetable most days and is enjoying the freedom to follow her own interests e.g. endangered animals and Amelia Earhart. The freedom is lovely for her to have but I hope having some shape to her day, and a huge amount of independent learning, will make the eventual return to school a little smoother.

You'll do what you'll do, not my place to say good or bad, whatever consequences, if any will need to be faced at some point. Only thing please don't ask the teacher for help with issues on return.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/parents-briefing-kids-on-what-to-say-theyve-been-taught-at-home-20200519196578

HTH

My DS has had a shit load of new lessons, but he is struggling, so we take lots of breaks.

In between times we are sorting out lego, you can do a ton of learning from lego, I need half of this eight brick etc.

Sometimes its not all about what is being set, but what you are teaching them, they can't just be left on their own. I try and sort the lego into what they are learning, so this week, they are doing time.

I do, if we start this pile of fucking bastard fucking lego to sort lego and do it in 15 minutes what time should we be finished

It is a good job he is ahead, because if you do no school work, he would have fallen behind.

I find it odd that you are teaching him to "cram" or leave things to the last minute by saying you'll do stuff in the weeks leading up to school starting. This sets a really poor work ethic that he may struggle to shake off. Even a little a day would help keep focus and understanding that education is important. Could you use some things as a leaping off point for him to learn about things he is interested in? Having the internet these days is amazing, you can learn anything!

I'm still going into school for keyworker children and sadly the gap is visibly widening between those children who are doing something at home and those who aren't.

In my class about 60% are handing in their work daily, with others doing so more sporadically, so it's not just on mn that children are doing their work at home - many parents are trying really hard to maintain some routine and engagement with learning.

OP, now you've noticed this terrible attitude he has to learning - that you only do it if it's being handed in/checked - you have an ideal opportunity to challenge it and change his mindset. Surely you don't want that to persist into secondary school? It doesn't have to be onerous. Even an hour each day would be beneficial. He'll feel the benefit when he goes back to school and learn something valuable about effort.

*educate him in the value of learning things for your own personal benefit and development.

A research task or project or essay doesn’t have to be marked and looked at by a teacher for it to benefit your child. There’s plenty of value just in the doing of it.*
This. Very depressing think that something is only worth doing to be marked.

I think I would switch up what I was asking him to do.

So maybe look through the maths and come up with some projects that use that maths but don't do it on a work sheet.

Maybe the same with a research project for science. Or combine the two.

One could get him to create a big grid with co-ordinates on it that's then turned into an island. You could set rules for the grid like 50% water, 25% forest. You could build a volcano for the island out of flour, vinegar etc. The trees could be made from greenery in the garden. The volcano could be an opportunity for him to learn about acids and how they react and more on the concepts of chemical reactions. Then maybe he could hide something (that would be s treat for everyone like an offer of ice cream for pudding) in the island, and write a series of clues using coordinates that one of his older siblings could humour him and follow.

That way it's not work he has to hand in, but project based learning that shows how great learning is for its own sake.

I totally understand kids not wanting to do A4 sheets that won't be marked, so I think I'd be working out how to integrate maths and learning into my day to day life.

Two things stand out for me:

He thinks that work is only worth doing if it will be marked and he is bright and ahead of his peers. The combination means that he is unlikely to learn how to motivate himself and the day he comes across work he finds challenging he won’t know how to learn because he won’t have developed these skills.

Your response to the current crisis is feeding into this, ‘It doesn’t matter and you are better than this’ attitude.

If he is bright and spends his days without challengesI imagine he will get quite bored.

i dont understand why you arent
and dont know what you are all doing?
surely the older children are working

what are you doing?

I wfh normally and am a single parent. Work is crazy busy and I spend over 7 hrs a day on the phone to clients and squeeze my actual work in around that. My working days are 10 -12 hrs at the moment and I’m exhausted.

I feed DD. I set up activities before I go to bed for the next day. I try to help her (got to love my mute button) but I can’t be a school teacher. She is 9 and she definitely reads every day. She walks the dog with me in the evening and we look at plants. She waters the garden and plays and draws and I try to fit in some maths. Mostly though I try to make sure she’s as happy as possible and just talk to her and spend time with her when I’m not on the phone. We do a bit more on the weekends but we also have playing together to fit in.

I think it's important to cover the basics. I'm no teacher and at the beginning I was trying to keep up with the work being set by school which involved video lessons on things like fractions which I could barely understand myself! It was time consuming and stressful and I found myself snapping and getting impatient which was awful for both me and dc. If I wasn't working full time I would have had the time to spend doing it properly but I haven't so we stopped that. But I am insisting that everyday we have some sort of routine including Bitesize, reading, times tables, a few maths activities and English/handwriting practice. It's nowhere near what he would be doing at school but it's something.

There are some parents who have basically taken on the role of teacher and are covering everything school sends. There are some doing nothing at all. There are some like me doing odds and sods.

I think it depends on the circumstances but I wouldn't feel comfortable with mine doing nothing otherwise he'd be on a screen all day.

It’s about attitude and discipline. Show your children that you value their education, that it is important! Because a “do or don’t” attitude - when you’ve said you are a SAHM so you have time - basically says learning isn’t important, and you don’t care. Are Letting kids do whatever they want for potentially 5 months? That’s gonna be hard to come back from.

Yes, YABU.

Early key stage 1 pupils don’t need to do rigid schoolwork, they can learn mostly through play. Year 5 is a different story all together, your child will be undertaking SATS in a years time. Huge disservice to your child to just ignore their education for months.