how is homeschooling going, just had a cry and abandoned it

[coffeelover3]

so ds is in year 7 and every day they start at 9am and work until 3pm, with a teams meeting where work is set, and then they have to photograph it and upload it. it's just getting me down - there's been lots of tears - it's a huge amount of work, and I'm wfh as well - have done very little this week, and what I've done has been in the evenings or after 3 when 'school' is over. I hate having to nag him to do it. Plus its quite complicated, the teachers all seem to use teams differently - some set up a meeting and have folders for the school work - others put links to the work in the chat and you have to email them the work, others use sharepoint, others use 'go for schools' to put the work onto. Plus they are setting homework. I cant bring myself to "make" him do the homework atm, but I suppose we will have to tackle it over the weekend. I'm going to be catching up on emails and work stuff over the weekend too. I feel like I'm constantly working, cooking, printing stuff out, helping ds - he is not very independent, I'm trying to work on that, but he needs me to sit with him and help explain what he has to do. I'm so worn out, and it's only a week in. How am I going to sustain it. I know millions of us are in the same boat, just looking for others and how they're managing. I feel so mean making him sit at the table for 6 hours a day - tbh we haven't done everything. Yesterday he was told to make 9 posters for music - 9!!!!! In the end I roped in dd, and we did 3 each and uploaded them. It's unrealistic...? And so boring - every lesson is 'watch this video then do the work sheets'. HOw are others coping, feel like I@m cracking up. And work due to get busy next week. something has to 'give'.

I don't think they should have any homework at all while doing online school. It's hard enough to do six hours of school work at home, never mind having to do more after school hours.

OP, your son needs to get more independent. What’s his reading age? Can’t he read the instructions? Tell him he doesn’t get 1:1 attention at school so he can’t have it at home.

I'm a primary teacher and in charge of remote learning provision at my school. I'd contact them and ask them to have a common approach to make it simpler. They have to provide quite a lot of work but let the teacher know that your child won't be completing it all. Home schooling is so different and we all have to be compassionate towards each other and accept that we are all trying our best.

My Year 7 is doing all her work with a close friend in her form who is on her level, intellectually speaking. So they have their phone on wifi all day to bounce ideas of each other. They even exercised together. School said have a work buddy, if it helps, to motivate. She did similar in lockdown 1 in year 6.

I thought I had dodged this bullet as dd is at university, but no, I've just spent two hours working through her assignments with her and ensuring she understands the objectives (she's autistic and her support has evaporated of course, not the fees naturally). Monday "we" are writing a dissertation plan, lucky me - do I get the degree too???

You can't do more than mental health allows.

I would write a note if the workload is unmanageable, photograph that and upload it.

Much easier this time than first time aroundas both schools better prepared, and also DS has been diagnosed with ADHD in the meantime and now taking meds to aid his focus.

Last year he was set work on sheets mostly and I was filling time with YouTube and Bitesize, but unless we hovered over him, he'd often stare into space rather than doing work or asking for help. This time, more zoom lessons & he's more capable of logging into them himself and now he's on the meds he will actually sit down and do the work. A bit scrappily, but he's doing it without lots of cajoling - he's in Y5.

DD is in Y8 noe and what with her brother's issues we rather left her to it last year only to find she really wasn't coping towards end of first half term of school , but after a bit of support and DH checking in on her it improved a lot. This time there is a fullish curriculum on Teams meetings and she says she's finding that much easier to cope with and more motivating to do the work.

Just tell the teacher. If a parent emails me and says they've done one task out of 4, that's fine. It's very hard to gauge how much to set - this is the same in school, when sometimes what's planned for one lesson takes 10 minutes and sometimes runs to two lessons. Teachers don't know unless you tell them! Children also work at different paces. But sometimes schoolwork is boring, and I don't think that's a very fair criticism of schools. Doing maths and English first daily, as mentioned by a pp, is the case in almost every primary in England and has been since the 90s.

Nb, recognise we are very lucky.

@coffeelover3 , DH found using Trello to keep track of work helped DD manage stress and complicated systems in Y7, could it help your DS? Just somewhere to record what he needs to do when and where he's got to with it?

We haven’t handed in any work. We have done some but not all of what was set. I have had no comment from teacher yet and am hoping they will say as last time just do what you can. This is with one child and I don’t wfh. Child was not happy, what am I supposed to do argue all day and have everyone upset?

Please be kind to yourself I’m so sorry for the bad day you’ve had. Given the sheer volume of people posting about this I think the school are going to HAVE to cut some slack. Have a lovely weekend it sounds like you deserve it. 💐

My oldest is in Yr3. We barely did any school work in lockdown 1. This time I am feeling more pressure to make sure it gets done, so I'm more organised with it but I'm still picking and choosing what we do. I'm mainly focusing on the stuff I know DS needs to work on. His school have uploaded a bunch of different resources for him which has been good, and we are able to set our own pace. I work part time and have a 3yo too, so I just do bits whenever I can fit it in.

I appreciate I'm in a privileged position though as I have a decent amount of time in the week to get it done, and DS isn't in an exam year or anything. I'd likely be drowning if circumstances were different

We've been doing whatever we can. Some days that's all the assignments and some days it's nothing. If the teachers want to come and berate me for not following the curriculum to the letter they are very welcome. This is an unprecedented situation and we can't expect children to take on the same workload as before, none of us are! Just do what you can and leave the rest.

Lots of good advice on here already. I have a Yr7, and not worrying too much about spending extra time on the subjects he will definitely be dropping at the end of Y8, eg music, drama and art. Just doing the bare minimum on those to keep focus on the ones we think are important.

viccytwiffy
I would imagine parents will still want art classes. Its a way of de stressing for many. In fact please pm your details if you teach 11 year olds!

Sorry, that seemed like im bad mouthing the teachers, I'm really not! 🌻

My day goes like this.
I quit uni to look after my daughter.
I spend all day being calm and schooling and playing and cooking and cleaning and calmly responding to every single bloody interruption while I cook or need to reply to an email.
Then my husband who still gets to have s career and talk to others all day has a row with me and goes out to walk the dog. While I then spend all evening bathing, stories, playing etc until bed at 9 30.
I'm bitter and resent how much I've lost.
I worked very hard and had a career at my fingertips. It's gone.
I'm on the verge of divorce. I can't stand the face he doesn't understand what is like to lose everything.
I think about just walking out into the snow and sleeping in the woods until I freeze.

YANBU, OP. I sympathise.
Fortunately, my DD's (Year 7) school only uploads classwork tasks to one platform so that makes life easier.
I did email the school though because some of the tasks were exceeding lesson time by a lot! They said just to do what you can in the allotted time.
In your shoes, I wouldn't even bother with homework. Just email the teachers to let them why. Downtime is important too!

I feel your pain OP. DD is year 6, DH and I are both wfh. Motivation is low this time but school has set work on various platforms which is expected to be uploaded. The support is pretty crap. So far no sign of virtual lessons or even on the horizon.

DD wants me with her to explain what she’s supposed to be doing and I’m failing at my job and at supporting her. DH is senior in his role at work and in video calls all day.

It’s shit. And I want to cry!

Oh god it’s a nightmare. And I only have to do it 2 days a week. DH is doing 2 days and the other day they are in school as we are both key workers. I could send them in more but trying to reduce the risks to both us and school (we both still have to work outside the home where we come into contact with a lot of people).

When I’m homeschooling I’m also trying to WFH. I don’t normally WFH and most of my job can’t be done from home but I’m just trying to keep up as much as I can. We have 1 laptop (my work one which I also need to use) my iPhone (also technically a work phone) and a really old iPad. Class meeting at different times which I find really disruptive. We are basically getting bare minimum done.

We’ve got building work going on. It’s noisy. I’m constantly answering texts from work about things that only I can sort. I’ve started getting up ridiculously early to get some work done before the kids start and then working from 3 once they have finished. I’m exhausted and feel like I’m juggling 20 balls at once.

Thank god some days I actually get to leave the house and go to work. I don’t think I would cope otherwise. I’m also grateful that I’ve been able to adjust my rota and be at home more, no matter how difficult that is, and that I still have a job and a house. It’s bloody hard but there are others much worse off than me

9 year old twins ....One dyslexic....bad internet connection and l get home from work ( key worker ) at 8.30am. I want to jump off the balcony .....

@Walkswithbitches

My day goes like this. I quit uni to look after my daughter. I spend all day being calm and schooling and playing and cooking and cleaning and calmly responding to every single bloody interruption while I cook or need to reply to an email. Then my husband who still gets to have s career and talk to others all day has a row with me and goes out to walk the dog. While I then spend all evening bathing, stories, playing etc until bed at 9 30. I'm bitter and resent how much I've lost. I worked very hard and had a career at my fingertips. It's gone. I'm on the verge of divorce. I can't stand the face he doesn't understand what is like to lose everything. I think about just walking out into the snow and sleeping in the woods until I freeze.

Sorry to hear. How old is DD? Have you looked at part-time online uni--is this feasible for your line of work?

we have had a difficult day today. there was a maths PowerPoint my year 6 had to do, but to fill it on on screen meant inserting text boxes, so I printed it our 4 slides to a page and it was still 6 pages. then I had to home make a table for one of the slides. Still unachievable. just the poor teachers had 24 hours notice i guess but they haven't converted the work to a home-sxhool situation or format. or given any parental guidance on wtf to do with the work set, no idiot proof parental instructions on what's expected or how long each task shoild take etc. Still, better than last time where for the first 2 months there was nothing more than a few links to bitesize and whiterose.

My DS is in Y1. Yesterday I had to teach him about imperative verbs and time connective conjunctions before getting him to complete a written task using both. Among other equivalent tasks. While wfh. With the neighbours roofers putting a new roof on their house (bang bang bang) while listening to deafening techno all day. My DS is not a quick learner at all.

This lockdown will drive me to drink.

Tell the school it’s too much and that not every parent can dedicate the school
day to attending to home schooling.
What about parents who rely on grandparents for child care? I wouldn’t expect them to do it.
Say you’ll do your own work at home but it’s just not practical for you.

@Kumquatsquash

We've been doing whatever we can. Some days that's all the assignments and some days it's nothing. If the teachers want to come and berate me for not following the curriculum to the letter they are very welcome. This is an unprecedented situation and we can't expect children to take on the same workload as before, none of us are! Just do what you can and leave the rest.

i dont think teachers will do that! i agree 100% - for me its about keeping life going - getting out once a day, eating well, keeping spirits up, as much as doing school work isnt it?