To give up on lockdown homeschooling

[Rainbowb]

Dd is year 3 and I have doggedly stuck to the home schooling even though every time dd is sliding off her chair, calling me hateful names and moaning non stop. I just didn’t want her education to suffer and for her to be behind. She’s bright but not particularly academically minded so tends to be miss average in class and I’m mindful that our nearest secondary school is dreadful. I just wanted the best for her but today she has been nastier than ever, says she doesn’t care about learning or doing well or if she struggles next year. I spent days teaching how to tell the time a couple of weeks ago, just asked her what the time is and she doesn’t have a clue. She doesn’t recall any of what we’ve done, her writing is still a mess so what I’ve done has made no difference. I’m sitting here in tears and I realise I have to stop for the sake of everyone’s wellbeing. Her future is up to her, I can’t keep breaking my back trying to help someone who doesn’t want it. I know I’m a failure but I just can’t do it anymore. I’m working part time too and it’s all getting too much.

Have a break from it for a week or so and then revisit.

If the sitting down, worksheet learning isn't for her, try something else. It doesn't need to be following the set work or completely giving up on her.

Don't stress yourself out about it though, they will go back to school eventually and yr3 have plenty of time to catch up.

Your not a failure, lots of people are finding it hard.

I'm giving up as of this week.

I've been working through out the pandemic and I've 4 kids ages 1 -14. I cant do it anymore, its been so a stressful. I'm exhausted with it all.

I've pretty much given to be honest
Life is too hard to at moment
My child is not child who has taken to learning at home
I'm finding it hard at the minute her behaviour's so much worse I'm not going to carry on making things worse

She’s year 3. She’s 8. Her future isn’t up to her just yet (I utterly sympathise and I’m in the same situation but she’s not old enough to fully understand the long term ramifications re her future.

I'm plodding on with a y2 and y4. It's been a battle from the start as DS1 has SENs, he is bright, but dyslexia and dyspraxia take his toll and autism affects perspective, patience and problem solving. Meanwhile DS2 is not the world's most mature learner. Possibly dyslexic too but not to the same extent if he is.

I've had better results from y9 set 4 on Friday p5

We've tended to ignore school's work and go for Bitesize. The interactive games and videos suit them and they like the format. They get intimidated by longer open tasks. School has now switched to a weekly project and I thought that more choice in that would work better, but they favour the short structure of bitesize.

I find a one hour blitz each day works for us. It's too hard to herd them up and remotivate them to do multiple sessions (I tend to be better at blitzing in one go and find recovery from breaks difficult)

I very quickly came to the attitude of keeping their brains alive with new information, and retaining skills like stringing a sentence together is enough.
DS1 was daft about the brackets work on the English today, but although it was silly nonsense, it showed he understood the point of grammar so let it pass.

I have to live with them 24/7 and we all need a balance between total neglect and apathy, and causing meltdowns and demoralising them by being too rigourous.

My PGCE is not being wasted, but strewth it's tough even being an experienced ex-teacher with reasonable resources.

There isn't a one size fits all answer, but it's worth chipping away a bit each day.

There will be children doing far less. I'd think many other than the most studious will be struggling now it's been so long since they were in school. Y2-5 have not got the most developed independent learning skills anyway (and from my experience of secondary, it's idealistic to think too many y7-9s have either).

I have Y4 and Y9 at home. Y9 is reasonable I track his work through class charts app - he’s doing it all but I suspect at a minimum level. Y4 is hard, hard work - we do mainly online quizzes (timestables/spelling/comprehension etc) though there is some written stuff. It’s tough and some days I do feel close to tears with frustration but we try and do some each day. DS 2 has mild hearing loss and was having extra support at school and making real progress, especially as he’s got the SENCO this year. It’s gutting he’s likely to miss the rest of Y4. When the school stuff really is a no we’ve been doing some cub badges - a least there is the reward of a badge. I also offer a small monetary reward if work gets done.
I think my frustration with not be able to do this well is that I did a PGCE In primary education (I’m not working as a teacher) so in theory I should know what I’m doing!!

I have a Year 3 child. We have ditched the school work other than MyMaths because the work is designed to be done in school. We are not In school! Also, a lot of it is designed to be printed out and we don’t have a printer.
So, we do A MyMaths lesson, a section of our times tables book, BBC Bitesize daily English lesson, a section of our spellings book, David Walliams daily elevenses Audiobook and also 30 mins independent reading (Wimpy Kid).
This seems to be about right here, although obvs your daughter might be totally different. A selection of child friendly workbooks were a good investment - times tables, spellings etc - because he can see quite clearly what he has to do. I went for Collins, which seem good.

Make her keep up with her reading and take a break from everything else

I have found that an easy reward approach works really well for DS (... in y5).
It's simple, no or limited screen time until the basic is done! Unlimited screen time nx day (minus home school time) if he keeps up with the set timetable. We have ups and downs but he is seeing the consequences.

Yr 2 here. Finding it sooop difficult now. Apparently she hates home school and work and real school (even though she didn’t, and the week before lockdown was begging me to be a key worker so she could still go to school)

We struggled through English today. She spoke in a stupid baby voice and refused to answer any questions. I gave up.

Year 6 here - I'm a keyworker so he's been going to school 2 days but I've given up on homeschooling the other days. As long as he's outside in the garden I don't care. I can't do it at the same time as working. Fuck it - they will all be varying degrees of behind and will all need catching up.

DS 8 isn't good at the worksheets. Some days what has worked well is taking chalk outside and writing all over the floor/walls.

I insist on 30 mins maths, 30 mins writing, 30 mins other learning every weekday. No screens for fun until that's done. If he wants to read/Lego all day, that's fine, but no screens.

Some days he does it first thing like the plan says. Other days he starts when he wants screentime. Twice he hasn't at all, I think testing my resolve re: screentime.

I'm wfh. I can't push him for hours on end. He gets on with it or lives with the short term consequence

I could have written this. Every word. Including the time telling bit. You aren't alone honestly. I'm keeping going because it feels like the right thing to do but I absolutely feel your pain.

My 7 year old struggles with the open ended projects as well! Just likes worksheets and simple questions and answers. It’s been a real struggle as we’ve set the boundaries and he’s tried to push them to see what he can get away with. He has to do his maths and English work sheets and half an hour reading every day if he wants screen time later. He’s not allowed screen time till after tea though. As another poster has said as long as he’s playing outside or playing with Lego or doing something off screens for the rest of the day I don’t mind.
Some days he refuses to do his work. Which is fine but he isn’t allowed screen time that day. Most of the time he does just get on with the work.
I spent a week teaching him fractions then the next week he said he didn’t know how to write a quarter as a fraction. Drives me bloody round the bend. He does know he just plays stupid sometimes I don’t know why.