WFH and homeschooling

[Thesagacontinues]

Round 2 here.

It seems worse this time and I really wanted to quit my job this morning.

How is everyone else doing? Have you managed to get into any good routines? Any tips to help me through it?

I really want to know if all the other parents WFH are ensuring every single piece of work is completed because we just aren’t managing this.
Mine need to be supervised to do the work, and this just isn’t possible for a huge chunk of the day when I need to be working!
We are focussing on Maths and at least one other item per day but I’m expecting to get a phone call from the school any day.
Anyone else?!

I get up and dressed earlier, get the kids dressed ASAP. DD6 is quite keen at times so I set the computer up ready for her and she will start while she eats her breakfast. Toddler is 1.

I take a break from my work to focus on her and her work for 15-20 mins a few times a day, otherwise I leave her to it. I work and keep toddler occupied while she works. She keeps toddler occupied while I work.

Currently having my break from everyone while the kids play!

I’ll then do some more work after they have gone to bed.

Sorry Thesagacontinues that was completely unhelpful to you! Sorry for the pity party - blame the rain 😆

@Itsseweasy dont apologise, I want to hear from others, at least I know Im not the only person struggling. My ds is the same and needs help, hes has SEN and is finding it hard to concentrate at home.

@Irre247 that is impresive for a 6yo. I like your idea of taking time out a few times a day though, rather than doing it all at once. Mine are 7 and 1 so v close in age to yours.

My 3 year old is at nursery this time round. I set myself and the 7 year old up with workstations for the day, on the dining room table. I don't push it though. If she wishes to go off playing games or on the ipad fine.

We always go for a lunchtime walk. I sometimes set my daughter up with a zoom art class. Also her zoom ballet class (paid for) is at 4pm and this takes 45 minutes.

I think it's impossible to home school and work from home, so I'm just grateful for small wins. Last time I was getting up at 5am (I had a two year old too), and also working weekends and after kids went to bed. This time I'm doing a 9 till 5pm, as it just wasn't sustainable for my own health.

If nurseries close, I may have to use grandparents. We all had covid at Christmas so we have antibodies, and I think it should be safe. It's just the grandparents are both over an hour away. I'd have to work from my parents or in laws house. DH does not work from home.

I don't aim very high with homeschooling.

Teacher (secondary) here currently home schooling my 7 yo as on mat leave with new baby.

We have the schedule on the fridge as a picture timetable. Some blanks for lessons that change each day (Maths and English always same times) and we have pictures to blu tack on for those. Form tutor discusses the schedule during morning form time each day so DD sticks them up then. I downloaded this from free Twinkl.

Each subject has a project file and I download the sheets for the forthcoming week at the weekend, hole punch and put in the correct folder in the order they will be needed. These files live in one of those magazine box file things on the dining table along with a pen pot of sharpened pencils, rubber, colours etc and a folder of lined paper and plain paper. DD works with a tablet at the table.

Almost all lessons live on Teams and resources in file section of Teams which DD can navigate herself.

I remind her of lesson start times but she also looks at the clock herself as often I'm putting the baby down for a nap etc.

Then uploading the work happens when I have a spare moment.

We also have a getting ready for the day chart and a getting ready for bed chart.

Did same thing when I was teaching from home and DH wfh but only difference was she had a desk next to each of ours so sat next to whoever didn't have an important meeting!

It's much easier if your child is relatively independent plus the school does a lot of live lessons to keep them focused. And obviously if you don't have too many- my friend is home schooling 3 of them plus caring for a toddler!

It is tiring for them though so I wouldn't worry too much about following your intuition instead. Last week we skipped a non live lesson for time in the garden away from a screen. My secondary pupils get very tired.

Also depends on your role. Both DH and I are relatively senior and can control our work schedules / catch up work at other times without consequence. When we were both wfh, we had a master calendar to show both our meetings and DD's live lessons all in one place so could work through conflicts.

I’m ready to tear my hair out .. Chronically ill with long covid and desperately trying to run a business , my ten year old struggles with maths and had a support assistant in school but excels at English and reading . Four hours min of work set each day but no teacher support during the day means I’m having to supervise and maths is taking hours .. I could cry

We have almost nothing but a massive jumble of worksheets from school and almost no live teaching (30 mins a week 'storytime'). I work FT and am in a CW role and DH is a CW working away from home (although this isn't just a problem for CW), so DD is getting almost no education. The number of adults in school with the CW bubble (and not teaching live 'because we have to cover the CW bubble') is about 1 adult per 3 children. Children of working parents are getting ignored and nobody seems to care.

I see other children online being taught by teachers and given other enriching stimulus and I just want to cry.

@Spacecadetagain

I’m ready to tear my hair out .. Chronically ill with long covid and desperately trying to run a business , my ten year old struggles with maths and had a support assistant in school but excels at English and reading . Four hours min of work set each day but no teacher support during the day means I’m having to supervise and maths is taking hours .. I could cry

to you. Sounds so tough. Be kind to yourself and focus on what your 10 year old is good at/enjoys doing. Surely the school will understand your situation, you can't do it all. Wishing you all the best x

We do English and maths. And the science if there is any. 2DCs, 5 and 7. Two ft jobs.

We are def not doing it all but I am prioritising their live sessions as it reinforces the motivation for us all.

It's not sustainable and quite frankly an outrage that there isn't proper coordinated support from government for parents trying to homeschool and work.

Absolutely no live lessons at all here from school.

Kids are 9 and 10. Teachers send everything on a Monday morning. It includes maths sheets (really just the younger one who has these), spelling words, handwriting practice (again younger), a comprehension task each and lots of ‘use sumdog, use bug club’ etc. There are other things like ... draw X, make Y with household objects but I don’t have time to even entertain that atm so we’re ignoring that kind of thing. They’re finished all sheets etc set to them for the week now so tomorrow and Friday it’ll be the websites/apps and I have printed a few extra maths sheets for my youngest. It doesn’t feel like enough tbh.

I’ve been trying to work early so 6-9, 7-10 then we school till about 12/1 depending when we start. This is me going between the kids helping them as I can and also includes them doing half an hour of a dance class with Oti or another video type thing. Then after lunch I work again while they do whatever!

I’m fucking exhausted with it already!!!

@Spacecadetagain

I’m ready to tear my hair out .. Chronically ill with long covid and desperately trying to run a business , my ten year old struggles with maths and had a support assistant in school but excels at English and reading . Four hours min of work set each day but no teacher support during the day means I’m having to supervise and maths is taking hours .. I could cry

I would definitely just do what you can. Even in school if the teacher has a big class they might not even realise a child hasn't done all the work or hasn't understood until they mark the books. No child would get one to one focus. Well few children. Better to do some maths and succeed then plug away for hours causing your child to hate it. Is the Maths differentiated in any way so maybe there is core work and extension? If not, explain the Maths is not at a level they can access.

Lone parent here. We’re focussing on one good solid hour a day because that is all I can manage with work. We do this after lunch and I miss my own lunch break. We focus on maths, English and science and try to get out for a walk once a day. There are 3 x class zooms a week for half an hour which I also have to supervise.

It is much, much harder than last time. I think just do your best. That’s all any of us can do.

@1lbperweek

Absolutely no live lessons at all here from school.

Kids are 9 and 10. Teachers send everything on a Monday morning. It includes maths sheets (really just the younger one who has these), spelling words, handwriting practice (again younger), a comprehension task each and lots of ‘use sumdog, use bug club’ etc. There are other things like ... draw X, make Y with household objects but I don’t have time to even entertain that atm so we’re ignoring that kind of thing. They’re finished all sheets etc set to them for the week now so tomorrow and Friday it’ll be the websites/apps and I have printed a few extra maths sheets for my youngest. It doesn’t feel like enough tbh.

I’ve been trying to work early so 6-9, 7-10 then we school till about 12/1 depending when we start. This is me going between the kids helping them as I can and also includes them doing half an hour of a dance class with Oti or another video type thing. Then after lunch I work again while they do whatever!

I’m fucking exhausted with it already!!!

This sounds poor. There are govt guidelines on how much work should be set this time so I would check if they are meeting that.

I think there is a massive risk to our, and our children's, mental health with this.
I get so sick of being told they will catch up educationally. Well, maybe they will. But their mental health and happiness will be shot to pieces and may never recover.

Wfh full time with a 3 year old and 7 year old. Ds7 hates maths but likes English. I sit with him do the maths, I vaguely supervise the English. Try and do something educational with toddler when I can to assuage the guilt of how much screen time he is having. Ignore the music, Re, art etc. Just can't do it. We got asked to follow the links to learn how to draw a Robin yesterday. After 3 hours doing his maths I sent him out to play on his trampoline instead. I have told his teacher and she is fully understanding and has said our mental health is more important.

@NeurologicallySpeaking do you know where I’d need to look for that? Had a Google there but couldn’t see anything obvious! I vaguely recall seeing something shared on Facebook but of course can’t remember who it was or when they shared it. Thanks!

I have fairly independent kids (16 and 8)who have live lessons.

I am a lecturer. It's a bloody pain. I'll be honest. They want a hot lunch! The youngest needed black paper, white poster paint and wax crayons for art today. I have none of these things. It's a long day on screens for the younger one and by 3pm he's wiped out. I make him have an hour of screen free time after school every day.

The hardest thing though? I am never on my own I had no idea how much I need to be alone for at least part of a day.

We gomout in the evening for our walk and it's my favourite part of the day. I do thank my lucky starts though, that I don't have a toddler or baby to juggle.

Thanks all for sharing.

@NeurologicallySpeaking sounds like you are smashing it.

@Spacecadetagain its so hard when they usually have support for a subject in school because that means they need your 100% attention when doing the subject. My ds has support in school and they have just agreed they will do a one to one zoom with him for half an hour every morning. So sorry your school are not offering any support.

@Reachersloveinterest I think that is the problem this time - that the more time they miss its going to be harder to catch up. So teachers are setting the usual work in the hope the students can keep up.

@DonLewis I think that is having a massive impact on me aswell - never being alone. This time around dp is continuing to work away from home monday to friday so I cant do anything without someone following me.

My 1yo is actually easier to manage than my 7yo, because 1yo doesnt have to do school work

We've been doing school from home since March so we've got quite a good routine now. I'm not in the UK so timings are different.

Get up at 7:30 - have breakfast get washed dressed etc
School starts 8:30 - my kids (dd11 and dd8) have full days online so always have a teacher with them. I sit with ds8 on the living room while he does his lessons , and help when needed although it's not encouraged by the teacher. She puts what they need online each morning and we get it ready before class
I start work at 11am so I go to do my classes ( I teach early years online) - my morning sessions finish at 12:15 .. when I'm dismissed I do my own admin and pop in and out to make sure they're getting on ok.
School finishes at 1:45 - small lunch and get changed out of school uniform.
DH comes home at around 2:45 - (SLT at kids school and he has to go in). He goes through their work , helps with any homework and takes them out for an hour or so while I teach again from 3pm-5pm. After that we have dinner and evening routine and bed around 9ish for them

It's taken a while and hasn't been easy but it's working. I am very lucky they I have a daily cleaner so I don't have to worry about housework other than putting laundry on and washing up after dinner.

It took about 2 months for us to get used to it - hang in there !

We've had good days and bad days - just like last time. This time round I find the most productive hour is 8-9 so we use that before my work day kicks off and then another chunk before lunch and the last bit if needed after.

No live lessons and a very flexible job, thank goodness.

P46 @1lbperweek

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/950510/Schoolnationalrestrictionsguidance.pdf