If you have grandparents helping teach on zoom

[borageforager]

What are they doing? My friend is having her mum (ex headteacher) do an hour with each of her kids on Zoom - her mum is delivering a lot of the content the school sends out while she works one on one with the other kid, then they swap. I can’t quite imagine how this would work for my family although it would give my mum something to do. So if you’ve got grandparents involved, what are they doing?

I don't have any, but someone I know has the kids reading their book to grandparents, or granny watching while they do their maths sheet and making encouraging noises and just trying to keep them focussed and sitting down while mum is working

In lockdown 1 when the curriculum was suspended, a friend's DD was due to sit GCSEs which were obviously cancelled, so nothing offered for her educationally from her school.

Her dad's mum is a retired maths teacher so they asked her to do an hour a week of A level maths with her while they worked and supervised the two younger children's work.

In the end, she did an hour a day, and the daughter enjoyed herself so much that a friend also joined the sessions (all via Zoom) and they really hit the ground running in 6th form in September.

It was a win win WIN because it freed the parents up from feeling guilty about that child; the child got a routine back for the day - 10am lesson then 'homework'; she saw her gma and her friend daily; it gave gma (otherwise shielding) a purpose in life - she loved the intellectual challenge of revisiting her A level teaching 10 years on, planning the lessons, teaching them etc - it took all her spare time up effectively.

Another pair of retired teacher grandparents Zoom homeschooled their grandchildren (then 8 and 4) while the parents worked full time from home (both keyworkers). The grandchildren and parents remember the time fondly. The grandparents say it was the hardest time of their lives and nearly broke them...

Dd reads to my parents several times a week. It gives me 45 mins to do jobs hide in my office mumsnetting with tea and biscuits

If it works then I don't see a problem.

MIL (ex-teacher) works with DD 3 afternoons a week doing curriculum bits they don't do in live lessons. I email her the sessions (set by teacher) and they do that together. In lockdown 1 we did the same but with Bitesize sessions

My friend's dad is an ex-history teacher and is teaching her 9yo history. They do about 30 minute zoom a day, he emails over a challenge, task or link to a video to watch then my friend emails the result of the task to her dad that evening and the next day is feedback, discussion and more tasks. The ds is loving it and developing a real passion for history. The grandparent loves it as gets to meaningfully interact frequently with their grandson. Mum gets some time off worrying about homeschool. Everyone wins.

I've done zoom art class with older DGD, and read with the younger ones. It's a bit of variety for the children and a short break for the parents (who are wfh)

@mogtheexcellent

Dd reads to my parents several times a week. It gives me 45 mins to do jobs hide in my office mumsnetting with tea and biscuits

If it works then I don't see a problem.

I don’t have a problem with it!

I just can’t imagine giving my mum the work school sends home to deliver - we get an email with links to follow - as my friend does, so wondering how else I could engage Granny!

My dad got on FaceTime with DD. He doesn't deliver lessons though, it's more ad hoc help with questions she has and listening to her writing work etc. He is much better at maths than I am, but the only drawback is that he doesn't like current methods for maths.

My Mum reads a story (of her choosing) to my dc while I do some house work, it's usually
for about 45 mins - she asks lots of questions and I print out a relevant colouring for them to do to show her and it works well for us - I get so much done in that 45mins! She then also does a show and tell session with them - about 30 mins, each Friday and again it's great for me to make any calls etc. Mine are young though so easily occupied by stories/colouring, not sure she'd be up for teaching GSCE syllabus!

@borageforager

Thats why I stick to reading. Far too confusing. And my mum is a retired primary teacher.