Has anyone given up on home schooling?

[RandomGirl]

Just that really, I’m interested to know how much home schooling people are actually doing now. We started off trying to follow all of the work set by the school and now, we’ll, let’s just say that it’s a far more harmonious household.

Yea we gave up, dd is autistic and I now have a huge new respect for her 1-1 teacher haha

Look up unschooling. Kids can do amazing things when the pressure of formal learning is lifted.

Unschooling is great in theory, but it's not going to help your child at all when theyre facing the UK exam boards.

At the moment i think the majority of people have given up to some extent, but the gulf between those who didn't and those who did will be huge, and unlikely to be closed when they return to school. My secondary teacher DH is incredibly worried that the children whose parents didnt support their learning during this period will never catch up with those who did.

No way. Come september, that would be almost 6 months.
My oldest is dyslexic with autistic traits, he would never be able to catch up.

Still doing it with my P3 child, but never did loads. We do about 60 - 90 mins a day of numeracy and literacy work and he has the rest of the day to do what he wants.

The schools are still sending mine works and suggestions of courses. If I did nothing my kids would be just getting board and spending more time on screens doing rubbish. At least they are learning. Yesterday my son looked up Aderson and Morris airrade shelters, Today he wrote a poem. we will then be doing some maths. I think it,sa to log a period to do nothing. REmeber it is our responsability to educate our children.

We only do Maths and English(including spellings/reading and times tables)- watching Horrible Histories and DD is picking up bits from that plus we are doing BBC Bitesize. So nowhere near what she would be doing at school but better than nothing l suppose.

Also, unschooling is a ling term strategy, not a short term “let the kids do what they want”.
if done properly, its great, but it requires a lot of work from the parents!

@Fishfingersandwichplease I think that sounds brilliant. More than enough.

My DD loves Horrible Histories. She made little fact files on different bits of history from the show/ books (maybe your DC could do that too if you wanted them to do a little more.... not that you need to!)

School provides all kids with about 3 hours worth of lessons per day, we add reading, spelling, dyslexia support and either maths or science every day. so about 4 hours of work

We’ve basically been doing about one thing a day. I have a six year old and she likes to read and write stories and does this by herself - and absolutely loves art so I’ve basically been encouraging her to do the aspects that she loves. She does ‘P.E.’ via the trampoline every day and ‘Just Dance’ on the tv often. So I guess she’s missing out on maths, mostly. Maths gives me the fear so it’s probably my issue for not pushing that.

We struggling and have on days abandoned schooling - usually due to work impacting :(

I’m very envious of people that say my child just gets on with it and does it :( ....my morning this morning was spent setting her all up with an activity ....getting on with a work call turning around and seeing she’s not doing it as apparently she didn’t understand.....excuse every time.

I think she is bored with the worksheet type activities sent she needs some ‘teaching’ we’ve tried other things bbc Bitesize /workbooks etc but it’s the interaction I think she misses. Husband and I both try but we also trying to work - I feel we failing both work and child :( when I teach my child (I want her to do ok and not fall behind) I’m not working which in turn makes me stressed.

Having known people that do actual homeschooling (very well) this isn’t it - they’ve told me this completely different to it. They access days out /tutors / activities that they know interest their child as they’ve been the teacher.

summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/silly-squad-bc-landing

Don't forget the library summer reading challenge can all be done online and might help with the reading aspect

It doesn't sound like you've given up homeschooling OP, sounds like she's doing loads of educational things! I would say I'm really keen on homeschooling and we've done loads - and my son does pretty much the same amount as you've described your daughter doing.

Maths is my area (weirdly, I have no idea how that happened) and if you're worried the most useful thing for her progress is a solid understanding of the idea of quantity - so recognition that six isn't a sqiggle on a page it's six individual blocks which can be split up into groups of one, or two or three. Number blocks on cbeebies is really good for a quick fix or games with counters, cubes etc - sneaking ideas in like "oh I have these malteasers and I want you and me and dad to have the same so it's fair, can you put them in bowls for me" were how my son got introduced to division. He also loves to build so I let him use the maths cubes we have to make robots and spaceships and we chat about the patterns in the colours, how many blocks each side has, is it even/balanced etc. Making cakes, but we don't want to make enough for four people, we only want to bake for two, should we use more or less.... All of it's maths. Somehow the message of maths = arithmetic got into our collective consciousness along with learning = worksheets and teaching = listening to someone talk about a topic.

Good god, re reading that post - that's the most middle class I've ever sounded in my life!

If it's just maths, there are quite a few online resources that might help OP? Fun games etc but with important maths within them. Not the same as doing formal maths lessons etc, but might help her practice without stressing you out?

My 6 year old is doing one twinkl writing worksheet a day (takes about 5 minutes).

About 5-10 minutes of reading a day.

Maths factor online. - it's free to sign up at the moment and carol vorderman gives a quick video explaining the maths, then there is a practice but for the children to do. Even though he's only doing 10 minutes a day I can see a real improvement in his understanding of numbers.

www.themathsfactor.com/ link to the maths website.

We are struggling right now. Getting bits and pieces done but will never catch up with all the set work. Dd1 is ok as she is motivated but the other two. Omg

DS is in year 9. I'm making him do the subjects that he intends doing as GCSE options, but have agreed with him that he doesn't need to do the subjects that he was intending on dropping at the end of this term. I've told him that he needs to do the remaining subjects to the best of his ability. I then told the school that this is our intention. He has an EHCP and would normally have a TA so I am fulfilling this role, so I spend the "school day" sat next to him.

We were working incredibly hard with loads of challenges due to limited/poor technology but dd got her school report on Monday which was just a list of the things she hadn't managed to do how disappointed the teacher was. She's been putting hours in every day and I've been helping. We are both feeling utterly deflated now and feel like giving up.

I've not given up per se, but I do feel like my DC could have been doing more. We've been doing and completing all maths,
English not so good with regards to completion. We've totally given up on science, drama and Spanish.

Some new things I've implemented, starting this week we'll be doing some Geography and politics. Politics won't be learnt about at school so as DC is now 13 I thought it would be a good time for them to learn. For Geography we have a globe, the globe will get spun and the main country DC finger lands on, we will study that country. This week it's Africa as finger landed on Algeria.

With regards to politics it will start off with a YouTube video showing inside the House of Commons, including a narrative. This we will watch today when I've finished doing my own work on the computer.

No, still trying to do it here but it’s difficult with working from home.
School provide some work for the week, but at the request of some parents changed it to more activity based rather than worksheets etc. Which is no help whatsoever when you are working.
My yr2 is doing maths factor daily and will happily read a chapter or 2 of his book. Really struggling with language/writing type stuff as he’s not too interested and I just don’t have the time or expertise to try and teach him in the same way his teacher does. This is something that bothers me because he is exceeding at all areas prior to lockdown, and I don’t want him to stop progressing because I can’t spend the time with him to help him progress.

We are some days doing everything, most days doing some things and some days not a thing.
I have been trying my best all the way through but some days we have ended up not doing anything.

I'm finding it quite tough getting my dc to do it. I just get whinging and moaning and crying about it.
All their reports have always been that they are hard working, enthusiastic love learning. A pleasure to teach.
I went into it at the start thinking it would be easy and fun. What a shock I got

As someone who loves to learn and read I find it really sad that my dc just think anything that is not Minecraft, YouTube or Fortnite is boring
On the other hand it has been the only way they have had of having fun with their friends so I haven't wanted to totally ban it.

At the start of lockdown a few school mums added me to a group chat and a few of them seem to have totally given up.
I think now we know there is no sign of my dcs year groups going back I am going to keeping pushing on with the school work.

I wouldn't judge anyone who was doing it differently or had given up though.
Everybody's child, family, work situation is different.

Mine are Y10 and Y6 and Autistic and Dyslexic.
both have a lot of executive function issues (organisation, focussing, procrastinating, starting task, staying on task, timekeeping etc etc ...)
School initially sent home an overwhelming amount of work.
None of it could be handed in or graded: they got overwhelmed and very distressed. No reply from School when I contacted them.
So. We stopped. For two weeks. Gradually re-introduced.
They are now settled and working well.
I am dreading School going back (they were both being failed there)
Yet I am also concerned about next years exams for my Y10 (we cannot replicate the practicals for Engineering / Design Tech at home)
It's a mess alright.
The Govt formally suspended the Curriculum in March.
So, am I confident they have plans to help ALL children to catch up?
Including those like mine with SN and SEN. Those who have no access to fast / reliable internet / laptops etc / parents who have time / energy / ability to 'Teach' them (esp Secondary level)

Am I heck!