Anyone else NOT home schooled their children?

[VelveteenBunni]

Don't get me wrong, I tried in the first couple of weeks. But with three kids and one with SN it's really difficult. I don't feel I have the capacity to educate and surely the most important thing is they are healthy and safe?

Of course Teaching is a skill. A learned skill in teacher training. No one has said it isn't.

However I'm not sure a teacher could step in and do my job without any training at short notice.

True never
But then I'm constantly being criticised by people who know nothing about teaching.
Do people tell you they could do your job like on this forum?

Thanks Mini, you get it. Unfortunately my DD is proving reluctant to get involved in anything. The first few weeks were great, we did loads of different stuff, but the novelty wore off.

I have friends who's kids are doing all sorts very successfully and I have huge respect for them. I don't think it's easy for anyone but everyone's circumstances are different.

No, my daughter (year 6) gets on with it while I work every day. Her PC has broke too so she struggles to access materials, but I bought her some learning books. Evenings, we eat and watch tv together. Weekends are house work and relaxing. It's just the two of us!

I couldn't do your job in a million years because I don't have the patience hence why I didn't go into teaching.

Yes I have people telling me admin is 'just admin' when it's not what I do, I run a million pound company from administration side and don't just type a few letters.

I've been planning home learning for my Reception class and tbh I'm hoping that parents have been reading and doing some of the maths activities. I've been very careful not to assume families have printers and make it as practical as possible. I'd be delighted if they've spent time together playing, walking and talking together.

Hey amazing you

I messaged in response on FB - www.facebook.com/mumsnet/

Sending you and all the non-judgey sisters on here much love and all my virtual hugs xxx Jen from The Learning Shed

The first month was fine, but after that although my ds has been doing the work it’s not been up to a standard he is capable of so I’m now back to sitting on top of him. He works much better in a structured environment, he can’t wait to go back to school.

It doesn’t help though when he is at a school that had the cheek to say on national television that they were loaning Laptops, giving out dongles so pupils can access learning, and doing everything in their power to allow their disadvantaged pupils don’t fall behind etc, yet bizarrely they can’t be arsed to allow their pupils access to the “Free to schools and their pupils Microsoft office” which my DS needs as the dodgy free one we are using keeps crashing and losing his work.

I wouldn’t mind if they had to pay for it but they don’t, so unless it’s a core subject I’ve told him to leave it if the application loses it, as he can’t spend hours on end retyping Spanish work for example ( which seems to take up to 1.5 hours at the best of times)

Yabu. Sorry but there is literally no reason to do NOTHING at all. You could even do 20 mins of reading a day and that would be a great help.

Its sh*t, we all get it, were on week 11... I think, and it's not going away any time soon. No one expected this but we have to try at least.

I have 2 DDs, 1 is 6 and the other 3.

The amount of work my year 1 6 yo gets sent home weekly is bloody ridiculous if I'm honest and trying to get through it is a chore especially when the subjects are rubbish and boring too BUT we are doing it, all the while having a 3 year old trash everything, shout scream and just be a total tit. trying to juggle entertaining a 3 year old while doing school work is pop, trying to get work done as well is also poop.. please try something at least just a few equations and a 20 min read a day.

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we do the bare minimum. Bit of reading in bed at night, a 10 minute session of maths, handwriting or similar once a day. that's about it. Single parent and unable to do any more! trying to work around all of this. Don't beat yourself up. Ignore the posters bearing down on you. Everyone is in a different situation, some have so much more to deal with.... Best of luck op x

*funinthesun19

Also I’m sick to death of everything being online. Online this, online that. Print this, print that.
My next door neighbours have work packs delivered each week by their school. If it was like that then I would find homeschooling much easier. That’s why I usually have no problems with homework when they’re at school because it’s physically in front of me.*

I agree, we bought a printer specifically so we could print stuff out to do but still had words with school about the amount of online stuff. You tube videos that didn't work, everything saved in different folders that took ages to sort, power points to view when we have 2 kids and one adult working on one computer. School offered a tablet but like we said we want them to spend less time on screens but also be able to get on with work independently so dh could get his work done too.

I'd have lived them to send out worksheets that I could supervise them with when I was off or dh could leave them to do in another room while he worked.

11yr old DD hasn't done any work since March. Not much reading, no writing or Bitesize.

The meltdowns and violence weren't worth it. I'll let her new secondary know how bad it's been and they can help get her up to speed. She's desperately missing school. She's hoping school opens in August and mum is wrong .
Her older brother wants to work so I support him as much as I can.

Ahhh, I miss the days of book, the children just learning from good old fashioned books, all this online learning is rubbish unless they have it with a mix of face to face.

The constant flipping back and forth of the PowerPoint slides, and watching YouTube videos that we need to keep rewinding and I hope to god he can find his work when he needs to revise as you have some in a book, some in google class and some on DPR. Just streamline it all in one place?!? Then they wonder why they can’t quite make the cut above being a just below average school year after year.

it’s just so much easier learning from a book, I personally think you take more in.. but maybe that’s just me.

Me coz I am working full time and the world hasn't crumbled.

@VelveteenBunni contact your school and tell them you are struggling they should either give you advice or offer places in school. For everyone complaining about too much work online there are hundreds of workbooks available to buy. Primary aged children should be reading and counting every day as a bare minimum.

WE do several hours a day - but haven't done much/any dance, drama, art, RS, sports science etc. There is so much uploaded every day and my pre-teens need me to see what's on there, print what I can, help them do a lot of it, and then scan and upload the work, so it's really time consuming for me! We're doing the core subjects and fun things - but they still moan a lot and get so easily distracted, it's a nightmare.

But I do think it's important to keep some semblance of schooling, otherwise it will be a massive shock when they do go back. DS has SEN so his sister is always complaining she has so much more than he does - plus his work is less detailed, but we are doing our best.

I'm WFH but am only PT so luckily can spend the time supporting them - anyone working FT or people with only one device, must be really struggling. I think we just all need to do as best as we can and that will be different for all families. But I don't think I'd support doing nothing at all unless for reasons of the children's MH.

My son is 10 and in yr 5. He is at the point now where he refuses to do the majority of work. First few weeks he was enthusiastic and insisted he had books to write in with all the different subjects. He was motivated to research himself and used his sisters old ks3 books to do so. This didn't last long. I then made him a brief schedule using the bite size website and some links from school. He has grown to hate it. Huffing, puffing and sighing about has turned into banging and shouting and refusal. Punishing him and praising have no effect. He is stubborn and bad tempered and I literally cannot make him do it anymore. He refuses to comply. I honestly dont know what else I can do and am now back at work too. He does read everyday and occasionally writes a story or designs//draws something. But no maths hardly ever.

My DS has been to school everyday as I'm a nurse that works Mon-Fri. There was not a great deal of learning going on before Easter and I had to ask them to give them the home learning while he was at school.

There has been a bit more since 1st June but it is not huge amounts. Don't be too hard on yourself. I would struggle to home educate one child let alone 3 and one with SN. Kids learn a lot from play and being outside.

I am a teacher and am happy to admit that homeschooling mine has never been part of my plan. And now I know why.

Their work gets done, they've worked every week during lockdown and hopefully won't have completely empty brains by the time they return to school but as a teacher I openly admit that this isn't just like teaching, it isn't just like being at school and it's nowhere near as easy as having a classroom of children ready to learn, equipped with my planning. This is mostly just winging it.

I gave up early one. I am a lone parent. I work from home 5 days a week (furlough refused). One DC at primary and one with severe ASD and learning diffs at secondary. I just cant. Not with working and being on my own.

DD is usually in a special school with a high staffing ratio. she gets salt, OT etc. with the lockdown, we lost everything. she is very hard to engage.

add in the younger child and that fact that I am working, how could I possibly do it?

All this 'you should make an effort' twats ... some people really have very protected lives...

I've given up mostly. Judge away. DH holes himself up all day, every day in our study because his work is evidently more important. I'm working from home FT too. We've got one child who doesn't occupy himself with anything but games/YouTube etc. He was never one for Lego, drawing, anything physically creative. I've driven myself almost insane trying to juggle everything (I'm also looking after DF). If DS does one thing in the day that is not a screen I'm happy, such as go for a walk, cycle, or occasionally BBC Bitesize (ok, still screen time but at least educational).

I feel like an utter, utter failure. Not just for his lack of education and activity, but because I couldn't give him a sibling. At least he'd have another little soul to be with.

We are all doing the best we can. I'm sure they will catch up op in the autumn

My dd is an only child and is really struggling during lockdown. Her Dad and I are keyworkers so are still working. She’s not going to school as she’s old enough to stay on her own and she recently had Covid also she says“none of her friends go to school” She’s getting quite weepy. I don’t know what to do 😢

Education is important but so is keeping sane and having happy kids. I have two with sen! It’s bleddy hard to motivate them and I don’t have the patience for it. They just refuse. School is school and home is home. I do bits and bobs with them but never full days, not even an hour a day usually! (And that’s a good day!) There’s much more than academics. Get out for walks, bake, build Lego and play games. Often as a sen family here we even struggle with these type of things - DS hates walking and playing board games but just some ideas.

To be honest we got barely anything down last lockdown neither. No teacher ever checked how much of it we were doing! The school did a fab job catching all the children up in September.

Don’t beat yourself as there are thousands and thousands of us feeling the same. 🌸