Learning at home: I can't keep this up - exhausted and depressed!

[UndertheCedartree]

I'm feeling so anxious and depressed about it all. I feel so much pressure from school unlike last lockdown. This isn't about blaming the school - I'm well aware probably half the school feel it is too much and half not enough!

This is for my Y4 DD we have been given a timetable covering lesson 1, break, lesson 2, lesson 3, lunch, lesson 4, reading. My DD needs quite a lot of support and the lessons are taking us 1-2hrs. This week I've spent hours every day with her until she can't stare at a screen anymore when she's done some arts and crafts and played her keyboard. She's only done half the work. I've done nothing with my eldest and DD has had the notebook all day which can't happen next week she will have to share it. I've not been able to do barely any housework or anything for myself. I have Long Covid as well as a serious mental health condition and every afternoon I have just felt like death as I am so exhausted physically and mentally. I can't keep this up

We've given up. We cant do it. I'm out working 8-6, DP is working from home in quite an intensive role and is struggling massively. DD(18) is trying to do all her college zoom lessons and coursework but she is struggling the noise and tantrums homeschooling is causing. Hes going to my awesome childminder from tomorrow and she is doing it with him in the mornings. One of his friends is there so they can do it together. 2 days we lasted.

@tigerbear - my DC's father has nothing to do with the work either!

@AdultHumanFemale - thank you

We are a week and a half in and I have 15 outstanding tasks

We are doing about 4 hrs a day but the teacher is setting 5-6 tasks daily. Plus she gets extra work from the ‘catch up’ teacher. Dd has Irlens syndrome, eye muscle weakness and optic nerve compression so large periods of time spent reading causes tiredness and headaches. She is also awaiting a dyslexia assessment.

So far she’s stayed positive but I don’t think it’s going to last long! I’m tired as I’m also wfh doing daily welfare calls, monitoring secondary students engagement with online learning and working on site 2 days a week. My house is a tip!

Meant to say my dd is 9, year 5.

@ParkheadParadise - oh, bless her. Must be so confusing for some of the little ones.

@Justgivemesomepeace - sounds like a good plan.

@Zofloramummy - that all sounds incredibly challenging. The massive amount of screen time is causing problems for many DC (and I'm not one to usually worry too much about screens) but must be even harder for your poor DD. My hpuse is a tip too! Not even got the Christmas decorations back in the loft yet

@UndertheCedartree I think what is also quite annoying is that we haven’t had any work marked since last Wednesday by her class teacher. The RE and catch up teachers however have been great with feedback. I must admit I’ll struggle to keep her motivated if this doesn’t improve as she really looks forward to seeing what the teacher thought about her work. She is very conscientious and wants to do her best despite her issues.

I think that schools need to be realistic about how much they can expect children to complete and more importantly maintain engagement over the weeks to come. If they are overwhelmed they will switch off entirely.

Today I set my DD up with her reading book and a drink and snack while I used the laptop for my Zoom meeting. My DD did some My maths while I made lunch. We then watched the teacher's video for Y4 and did the quiz. We finished the work from the last spelling lesson - writing sentences with all the words and trying to learn them. My DD responded to questions about her reading. We then did the French lesson by her French teacher. We did some keyboard practice and then it was time for dinner.

That sounds like loads. Well done! We’re getting set 3 pieces of work to complete daily and then the stretch activities and suggested extensions and things to occupy them like learning apps etc are there but optional. I’ve been at work all day today so my DH was sole charge whilst WFH himself and you just can’t live up to anything unrealistic in expectation if you’re the only one doing it so don’t even try.

I wouldn’t give one hoot about the teacher saying “it’s compulsory” - if we can’t complete something we can’t, and thus we won’t. Some is better than none. The school have to try to impress on parents the curriculum isn’t suspended like last time, but they can’t force anyone to do anything - and they don’t really want to either, they know it’s tough. They just have to give out these messages because they’re penalised if they don’t.

Reading, maths, writing (“literacy”) - that’s basically all you need to keep things ticking over. No one fell far behind not knowing fronted adverbials or how to wrote non-chronological reports, and they still won’t. Let her play with her dolls - suggest she write a comic strip about their antics, ask her to design them a new place to live or an adventure to go on and act it out for you or make a video - play is creative and also teaches kids skills if you go with their interests. Let her play and don’t drag her back to nouns if you’ve done some formal work already.

@Zofloramummy I hope the teacher does improve on giving feedback. We get at least one comment/marked piece of work a day, often more, and it does help to motivate and reward us. I wonder if you should ask if you don't get anything back soon? (The teacher or someone more senior, head of KS1 or whatever). Do you have contacts for other parents to see if they've had more feedback?

To others mentioning Oak Academy, we find the lessons long as well, though reasonable in content so far. (Maths and English lesson links that have been sent by school).

Thanks for the support tonight, some useful suggestions.

@NoSquirrels - thank you for the ideas of activities to do with her dolls - I think she would love to do all those things! I felt she did a good balance of things today but it is nowhere near what she 'should' be doing. Never mind - we will do what we can. It was nice to see your comments about play. Lots of people saying just do the English and Maths and forget the rest - but the majority of the work is Maths and English which we have no hope of keeping up with. I want her to have time for the 'lighter' lessons like French and P.E as well as arts and crafts, music and play as they are fun and she enjoys them. I feel the reason she struggles with some of the English and Maths are because she can't relate to them in real life and because she never uses those skills in real life she doesn't get any practice and forgets them. Like the other day - she just could not remember what a noun, adjective, verb, adverb and preposition were even though I explained it over and over. But why should she? I never break my writing down into those components - they mean nothing except in theory to me so why should they matter to an 8 yo? I would really rather she played than spent hours and hours on this stuff tbh. It's actually made me question what on earth she is doing at school all day - but actually the reality is they do lots of learning through play/fun activities, lots of outdoor and physical lessons, loads of art and music. This online work is nothing like they do at school.

Absolutely exhausted and so are my DC. It’s relentless. The first few days, my highly academic DC1 (yr5) was working 9-5 and still not getting it all done. Yr2 DC2 seems to need me as a 1-1 TA all day at home, though he manages without at school, and is highly anxious. Both have ASD and are in tears daily.

I’ve spoken to the SEN teacher and she agrees DC1 doesn’t have to work until it’s all done, but at the live Google meets he’s hearing a different thing from his class teacher and is convinced he’ll be in trouble if he doesn’t. They haven’t been out since Monday because they’re too tired after school work and it’s dark most days. Today, I drew the line and insisted on full break & lunch plus stopping at 3.30. So there’s loads left unfinished and DC1 is stressed about that.

Needless to say I’ve got cock all work done this week, and as I’m self employed that means no money.

I started all this positively because I knew schools had to close and support it. But honestly, I’m even considering deregistering them and doing ‘normal’ homeschool if this carries on for months and their mental health gets worse. Fuck this for a game of soldiers. It’s too hard.

Is it possible , as the OP has more or less said in her last post ,to limit completing work set to what is manageable ?

Would that make it too difficult to move on to the next tranche ?

Can you notify the school that you are going to do this and ignore the requests ? I appreciate difficulties in reassuring offspring ,especially if they are getting nagged in live classroom settings .

But this is unworkable for so many .

This thread has something useful to keep in mind as well.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4136137-why-is-it-so-hard-to-teach-your-own-child

to everyone, just one day until the weekend.

Lost the plot today. Shouted my head off. Not my finest moment. Sodded school this afternoon, got outside to play and put a movie on after.

Good on you sounds just what everyone needed !

Our school announced that the kids now have to register between 8:45 and 9am 🙄

Not great. I keep things flexible. Some days they have excess energy to burn so we go out early. Other days they’re having a calm morning playing nicely so I use the time to catch up on housework jobs. Then some days we do get an early start on the work

Now school are trying to dictate our schedule. It’s infuriating me.