Those who work hard in school are working hard at home

[whatdoyoudonow]

How far do you agree with this?

I've found that I'm getting work back from students who work well in school. Those who are hard to motivate at school are not engaging in home learning.

No surprises there for me at all so why are some of their parents so surprised?

I've had a few conversations with parents who are tearing their hair out because they can't motivate their DC. They are staying up late, sleep in late and won't work.

What would you say to them?

My 17 yr old is autistic and sees school/college as the places where he does academic stuff.

Home is home and that’s different.

He’s don’t nothing since lockdown.

He is however highly anxious and desperate to go back to college. We’ve done other stuff though such as gardening, talking about the future, cooking with me etc.

He’s done some stuff but just not school/college directed work.

@AtRedSkyAtNight

A poster upthread has posted their daily schedule which involves a fair amount of parent support and teaching of their 6 and 10 year olds. This amount of time is just not possible if the adults in the house are also trying to work at their paid job.

Um, we ARE both working. I am a key worker and also physically disabled. Normally work PT but currently taking on more due to crisis at work. DH is working FT too. We each teach the DC 2 hours per day, and make up our work time at night and weekends. The flexibility is key. I can see it would be different if you couldn't work evenings and weekends to make up.

Btw DC at home despite 1 key worker parent as we can both wfh and flexibly so told by employer to keep DC at home rather than risk infecting whole family by sending them to school.

The flexibility is key.

I guess that was more the point I was making. Not everyone has 2 parents who can take 2 hours each out of the working day to teach their children. Fantastic that your employers are allowing you to do it.

Switching days might work for some people - Where friends are Mon-Fri key workers who can't be at home/flexible they are designating 2 Mon-Fri days as weekend days for DC where the DC can loll about and watch TV all day with minimal supervision, and the 'school days' include Saturday and Sunday when parents can actually supervise and teach the DC.

Age is also key - if DS were even a year younger I think we'd be in a much worse situation.

Yes, very lucky here and responsible employers.

They do but I have also found that the kids I have with adhd, processing issues are doing excellently - there are only 2 out of 28 who aren’t submitting something each day.

My DD1 is very diligent at school. At home she is doing the minimum she can get away with and there are plenty of arguments and negotiations to get her to do anything. I've come to the conclusion that she doesn't have anything better to do at school, so is focused on her work. At home she's got plenty of other stuff to do, so isn't interested in school work.

I work in a PRU and we're actually finding some students are producing far more work than they ever do in school.

Y11 DD has always given 110% at school. At home pre-covid, she was never as committed but learned to be very efficient from an early age. Currently she's not particularly engaged with her schools online programme but there are so many reasons for that so i'm not inclined to get too worked up about it. At the moment, I am very much in the whatever get's you through camp.

And children dont need 4 hours dedicated "teaching" at home a day either. If its working as a way of child/parent interaction that is great. But it's not at all necessary.And that's why I think its really fine that how everyone does this will look different.

We'd prioritise other stuff, but thats because we have managed to have ingredients for baking and love letting them have free play to come up with imaginative worlds and games without direction (and mine are at an age and stage where they enjoy and want to do that.) One of the plusses for actual homeschoolers is that learning doesn't have to be at a desk like school. But conversely if that works for you its great!

Teachers at my kids' school would describe them both as hard working. Although they both always give homework in on time, one is much more motivated than the other. One is a huge procrastinator and one will do work ahead of due date.

My very hardworking takes school really seriously seven year old is a nightmare to engage at home to do work. We are averaging about an hour a day at most. She herself said she likes work at school she does not like school work at home. I have no worries that she will return to school and work hard again. She thrives more in a busy classroom with a teacher than with me.

Not sure it's like that in my house.

My ds9 works brilliantly in school but is hard to motivate at home. He is working but I thought he'd just get on with it.

Ds7 is very hard to get working in school but with 1-1 he's doing great! It's shown me that his problem is definately concentration rather than ability.

Dd is working like she does at school.

DD 12 is working much more than at school. She has SEN and the school clearly are too lenient on her. She's progressed more in English and maths in the last 6 weeks than she did all of last year.

Some yes, but I have had a few surprises, one student who I normally have to drag work out off has been a complete star, really engaged in the lessons, lots of pertinent questions great work. Maybe away from the distractions is making a big difference.

Saying that most of the ones I am chasing where they ones I was expecting.

Me too!
He's the first to hand everything in (with photos of himself doing the work! He won't do a thing in class!