How does online learning work for 7yr old?

[kiwiflan]

Our LA have said that no available school can meet the need for my 7 year old son. We’ve been given an online tutor for 4 hours a week after two years of forced home education (I will still be home educating along side). How can I make sure this works well? Is anyone else doing this successfully? The tutor has said they will ask to increase hours and include some home tutoring. I’m not sure if the LA will approve this, we are on the pathway to EOTAS.

The tutor seems very positive, they had a good initial online chat and game of chess with my son on an iPad moving the pieces for both. My son then did a few sums on his own in his maths book as he knew he was supposed to be doing school work with the tutor at some point. Moving forward I want to make sure my son is not just running around the house with an iPad for 2 hours. Can anyone tell me how their child is learning with a bespoke online tutor?

If we got some home tutoring how does that work? We have a very open plan house, would I be effectively held hostage in the house to supervise all the hours? If the tutor caused a meltdown (we don’t have these now but if it started to go wrong) this would interfere with my husband's work (works from home, high-end exec in open plan house).

My son is PDA and academic. He is fine if he understands why something should be done but cannot be dictated to.

Id love to make this work well and want to avoid anything going wrong.

I think your husband needs to ignore the meltdown and wear headphones ( there must surely be a room with a door he can work in) or rent office space. This is your life now and your son needs to be accommodated at home. It’s your H who needs to organise himself around this. Not the other way around.

I’m sorry to hear about your son not being able to go to school. That must be very stressful for you.

There are several things to unpick.

1. When you say you are on the pathway to EOTAS, what do you mean? Where are you in the process?
2. 4hrs is not a suitable full-time education. The LA should be providing more.
3. The LA should not be requiring you to facilitate provision, be that online or in person. It is the LA’s responsibility.
4. You cannot be compelled to accept provision at home. Case law is clear on this. The case law was actually related to a parent WFH. So, unlike the pp, I do not think the onus is on DH to organise himself around the provision and/or rent somewhere else.
5. Moving on to the issue of online provision. For some, online tuition works well. For some, especially at 7, it doesn’t. Because such provision is bespoke, if it works, what form it takes will depend on DS’s individual needs.

I’m teaching him as no one else was previously able to. They put us as elective home ed as I wouldn’t leave him in an unsuitable place until failure. He was initially off-rolled from an independent school age 5. He’s smart, happy and learning and I’d like to keep it that way. The slow start suits us to see if it works well. I just didn’t know how a bespoke tutor can work and was hoping for examples. I’ve looked at online schools with video teaching, submitting work and live classes. I guess it’s a combination of this. I’m sure I’ll find out. The tutor was in their (parked) car for the last 2hr session, I’m assuming because it was an introduction and short notice, I certainly wouldn’t expect that moving forward.

I would challenge the LA recording you as EHE. By recording you as that, they are not responsible for education so could stop providing provision at any time.

Because of the bespoke nature of provision, knowing examples of how online tutors work with others won’t help you know what the tutor will do with DS or how they will work. There are numerous possibilities. From how online schools run with proper academic lessons either live or prerecorded, to not doing anything academic and it being things like crafts in parallel or gaming online together or talking about the child’s special interest or building Lego and everything in between.

Did you not discuss how it would work with the tutor before it began?

I would also raise the at the tutor was in the car. That isn’t really appropriate even if it was the first session that was last minute.

Tutor here! You want to make sure that the tutor is follwoing these general practices:
Lessons rarely exceed 30-45 minutes, split into rapid 5-to-10-minute segments (a quick game, a short explanation, a hands-on task) to match their natural attention span.
Not just watching; they are given digital mouse control to drag-and-drop objects, circle answers, and draw directly on a shared digital screen.
It isn't 100% digital. Your child is frequently asked to write answers on a physical mini-whiteboard or piece of paper next to the computer and hold it up to the webcam.
Gamified Rewards - digital trophies, star charts, and quick educational games to keep engagement and dopamine high.
Children should see real-world counting blocks, shapes, or books being handled in real time.
At this age, a parent needs to act as a "teaching assistant" nearby-not to teach, but to troubleshoot tech, manage focus, and hand over physical materials.

This is why it isn’t particularly helpful to know how others have online tutoring, or in this case, tutor online.

While this is how it works for some, it isn’t how all have online tutoring.

While this approach works for some, it doesn’t work for all, and for some, it is actively harmful.

The LA cannot compel the OP to facilitate the provision. Where an adult needs to be physically present &/of or a second adult is required, the LA is responsible.

Hi,
I don't disagree, just as a tutor, my thoguhts on some general practices that are quite common, but it's certainly not a one size fits all! Whats best for the family, and the learning context, is what is most sustainable in the long term.

Such practices aren’t quite common if the child has PDA, which OP says DS has. For many DC with PDA, some of what you describe e.g. the star charts would be actively problematic.

Totally agree, I was giving more general advice, but the experts should totally lead on this. Thank you for highlighting that bit, I missed that in the inital read.