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.

Its only on mumsnet that people are pretending to do schoolwork

No it really isn't.

OP it doesn't sound like the school have been great. My DCs school have set work on on a website and they have to hand it in. Either through the site or scanned/photographed and uploaded. They are both getting a maths paper a day to do which has an online lesson. They have English tasks set with powerpoint presentations so they can hear their teachers giving a lesson. For my yr5 DD it takes about 3 hours, 2 hrs for yr2 dd. Yr5 DD puts her headphones on and gets on with it, maybe need a bit of help with maths but its otherwise independent.

You need to be arsed to chase him! I can't believe as a parent you can't be bothered about getting him to do stuff.

I feel sad for you OP, that you’re missing out on the joy of teaching your child and seeing them grasp new or difficult concepts, the pleasure of reading together, of finding interesting facts, of motivating them to love learning for its own sake, not just to pass an assessment.
Children can soak up knowledge and become well informed, articulate adults, with keen interest in the world around them - they just need encouragement. Or they can languish, unmotivated, in front of a screen. Your call.

It isn't one or the other though. Lack of school work does not automatically mean languishing in front of a screen. 😂

Can you subscribe to something like Tassomai for a few weeks.

He can do 15-20 mins per day of maths English and science.

Then at least he's doing something educational?

I don't think what you are doing is wrong particularly. Just that it can be fun to do learning with your kids and he would benefit from it.

I feel bad. I haven't done any with Ds2, year 6. At all.

I know he's done all the work set, but it was babyish.

Teacher assured me she finished the syllabus ages ago, pre SAT's, and was Only setting work to keep them occupied and their brain stimulated.

I have 2 part time accounts jobs and I've been working double my contracted hours, every single day, since corona started. I'm absolutely shattered.

His teacher rings regularly, she assures me he's fine.

All my furloughed friends are Lying in the garden sunbathing, having cleaned the house from top to bottom, enjoying doing craft projects with their kids, gone over topics where the child has struggled - either algebra or whatever.

and I've done none of this.

When I look back at this. I'll realise what a shit time it has been.

I probably shouldn't have given so much of myself to my jobs and should've focused more on my children.

@Babdoc. Jeez, what is your problem ? OP did not say that her child was sitting in front of a screen for hours with no motivation. They are using this as a tool. It is teaching them things such as finances and life scenarios. It would be good thing for lots of children and young adults to learn.
They are going out and getting exercise. The child is helping to plant vegetables and learning to cook. Give them a break.

@Oblomov20

I probably shouldn't have given so much of myself to my jobs and should've focused more on my children.

You've clearly done what you've needed to do for your family. And yes, Year 6 if at school, would have been revising, doing their SATs and then relaxing, doing 'fun' stuff (after going through the papers possibly).

But there is stuff out there on Bitesize and other places that the children can watch (even older stuff if he's ahead)

Doesn't have to be all or nothing, and at least at 11 you don't have to sit over him while he watches it.

The thing is that lots of DC are doing school work AND baking, gardening, cycling, playing, building, reading etc. I know mine are (except gardening - we don't have a garden). DH and I both WFH FT/4 day week but are juggling things so our 8 and 6 year olds work every day. The 6 year old only has 1 hour from school. The 8 year old averages 25 hours a week which we spread out over the week, being careful of deadlines and online quizzes.

Both have learnt new things. Both have reinforced previously learnt things. They will feel much more confident going back to school after this than if we d just let them do nothing.

Agree with a PP - how is an above average child going to feel going back to school and being behind his previous peers?

I have about given up.

I have one that was at special school with complex SN that I am just getting to sit and watch educational stuff with me on Netflix, so the david Attenborough stuff as some of the work he was sent home was on global warming/environment.

His maths I haven't got a scooby, so tried for a bit, but trying to get a child with autism/adhd to do anything during all this when he's on a hair trigger for a meltdown? nope... he'll watch an hour of Netflix, so i'm going with that!

The other is yr6 and pretty much been sent home a shit load of sats papers to work through.. I get her to do a bit of maths to keep her brain going, and a few English work sheets on verbs/nouns.. but its only a couple of hours a week.

The thing is that lots of DC are doing school work AND baking, gardening, cycling, playing, building, reading etc

This. All this ‘my child has been on walks/learnt to cook xyz/looked at nature on a walk’ - all that’s great. But it’s just life, not schooling.

During normal times, these are some of the things my dc do on evenings and weekends. It’s just parenting - building practical skills and life experiences with your dc. It’s not an adequate substitute for the 6 hours a day of schooling they’re missing.

Reading comprehension practice, fractions and percentages, the environment, rainforest food chains, WW2, co-ordinates...these are just some of the things my Y5 ds has covered since March.

All the baking of cakes in the world isn’t going to make up for that if you’re attempting nothing with them at all.

And all of those things will be covered again in school 🤷‍♀️

EvolvingElle, hear hear, absolutely agree.
Teaching your children is a delight and a privilege - I really enjoyed teaching mine to read fluently, write and do basic arithmetic before they started primary school. I bought lots of educational books and games as they got older too, and read to them every night. An interested and committed parent can make a huge difference to a child’s knowledge base, literacy, numeracy and thinking skills.
As I said above, I think it sad if parents don’t even try. I was widowed when the kids were both still babies and I worked as a hospital doctor, but it didn’t stop me educating them.

I think people are being harsh. Times are hard. I finding it really hard to teach mine. Mine are behind their peers and need extra support at school. I’d make a rubbish teacher. We just aren’t managing to do a lot!

We have managed to spend more time outside in the garden though, spending time in the countryside and developing daughters physical skills. She has a mild physical disability. She’s learnt to ride a bike since lockdown.

I’d potentially have lied and tell DC it needs to be handed in - you can scan in and email to the school? Perhaps contact the school and ask if their teacher can send a reply eg once a week with some feedback to help encourage too

Then you could also just look over the work they’ve done to provide your own feedback each day which might help them too.

All of that should be doable without too much input from you if time is tight? Depends how self-driven they are once they know the task. Might be a bit young to be left completely alone

Came across this lovely poem today (I’m not the poet! The name of said poet is at the bottom of the poem). Felt it was very fitting. Joined MN looking for support but all I see at every cut and turn is people slating one another off...from teachers to parents and everything in between. Anyway won’t be back on MN again now for this reason, but maybe would do some people the world of good to sit back and think before they post on this slaughtering anyone and anything they don’t agree with. Have a nice day now 🙂

But is OP juggling WFH and homeschooling??
The OP is a SAHM who has decided she can’t be bothered for now and her son can cram later.

DH and I are both working. Our lockdown has been longer than the U.K. one. Managing to get some education done. School sets DS work and he runs it by me. I stop a few times a day to explain concepts to him if need be.
‘I don’t feel like doing it’ is not a great attitude to have in life in general. I also hate hate hate the idea that anything educational is dull and requires ‘effort’ and anything ‘fun’ does not.
To learn to cook or bake well, to learn to swim well, to bike, all of these take effort. But we don’t mind our kids doing this and see them as ‘fun’. So why should we teach them that educational stuff is dull and only worth doing when there is a deadline or things to be marked? What about learning or investigating something for the sake of knowledge or curiosity? This is such an anti intellectual attitude to education more broadly it makes me despair.

Yes OP, don't bother, let him do as he likes.

But don't complain when he is overtaken at school, uni and the job market by all the other bright kids, and lots of hard working not-so bright kids, that actually put some effort in.

Well DS learnt about wheat and how it’s harvested and milled today as we cycled through the wheat fields behind our house (Agriculture). DH knows a lot about it as his family used to grow it thankfully. He learnt about the eagles we saw and the names of various trees and bugs (Biology). Also cycled 6 miles (PE) and helped make a picnic (Home Ec). Wrote a list of what he wanted me to order from Amazon with his monthly allowance and totalled it up (English and Maths).

Homeschooling done!

I don’t know people are insisting he’ll fall behind seeing as he’ll have completed all the work set before he goes back to school and it’s not new stuff anyway.

So I see this thread had been hijacked by the
Daily Fail, who are obviously scraping the barrel for a story today in amongst their CV scaremongering, and I must be on benefits, completely thick and DS is feral according to the comments. Made my day that has and given me a good laugh!

You’re doing absolutely fine! I highly recommend you read Peter Grey’s book Free to Learn. He also has a fantastic TEDX talk you can find on YouTube - check it out and should stop any guilty feelings. Many families do something called unschooling which is a form of homeschooling and the children grow up to be incredible adults. Check it out...education is everywhere. It’s most certainly not confined to schools. If anything, they thwart true learning. Worth looking into ☺️

My 8 year old made his own breakfast, put it in the dishwasher, brought some clothes down for laundry, and gave his brother a snack. He’s also biked for a good hour. These are useful life skills but to pretend that this is somehow a good substitute for actual schoolwork is a little facetious.

@ChaBishkoot I'm amused by the mental image of your ds putting his cornflakes in the dishwasher. Carry on....

Well no, he ate it. Then loaded the dishwasher. Also made his bed. Don’t want a thread about him on MN in 20 years time about him being a man child.
And it is still not a substitute for a degree of formal education. DS does about 90 mins a day. Some maths. English. And one other thing. In the U.K. there is a weird divide between what is considered ‘fun’ and ‘schoolwork’ which is seen something that has to be endured. DS1 plays music very seriously (he’s already Grade 8 on his main instrument and Grade 4 on his second) and has learned the lesson already (he’s Y3) that the ONLY way to get better at something is to work hard and practice. And to have to push through the bits he doesn’t enjoy doing. This is a REALLY important life lesson and being told that some things are not worth doing because it’s not being marked is not a good way for a parent to convey that.

@chabishkoot

Excellent point. Teaching a good work ethic is a vital skill. It will help in school and in later life.

Obviously for people struggling at the moment with wfh and other commitments, they won't be able to do this. But if parents are able, teaching children to push through the bits they don't like to the bits they do is a really valuable use of time, in my opinion.