The Home Schooling/Teaching and Learning at Home Thread • Non-Gaming • Social • Eurogamer.net

Nexus_6 5 Jan 2021 20:36:41 5,685 posts
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Thought it might be a useful thing to pool resources for those needing to impart knowledge on youngsters over the next wee while.

Also a support group for when we are all fives off by it.

mothercruncher 5 Jan 2021 21:07:08 18,715 posts
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Sod dry January, that’s all I’ve got at the moment.

Dougs 5 Jan 2021 21:14:59 97,448 posts
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I managed a dry day.

nudistpete 5 Jan 2021 23:25:49 1,268 posts
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The only good thing about home schooling is that a lot of the teachers on the Oak Academy website are rather pleasing on the eye.

Rodney 6 Jan 2021 02:33:28 4,871 posts
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The last time I felt like crying was trying to teach my children at home while also trying to work from home.

I know other people have worse problems, but it was a genuinely shit experience, and anyone who is facing it has my sympathy.

The only way I could sort of make it work was to allocate time to each activity, so one hour of home schooling then one hour of work, trying to do both simultaneously just made me fail at both and was immensely stressful.

Dougs 6 Jan 2021 06:54:39 97,448 posts
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Yes, that was me yesterday. I was a bit of a mess yesterday. Diary at work no better today. I am trying to manage it this week as my wife is in work all week. Hopefully next she'll have a few days at home and I can take at least a morning from work. Any days left and they'll have to go in to school. I'll feel a bit happier if we can keep them away from the plague pit for as long as possible.

You-can-call-me-kal 6 Jan 2021 06:57:53 22,315 posts
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Just a heads up that working parents can now ask to be furloughed (at 80% salary).

My wife’s going to go for it. We just can’t make this work. Two days in and we’re already losing it.

Dougs 6 Jan 2021 06:59:18 97,448 posts
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Ah, didn't know that. That is likely to be genuinely helpful for a lot of people.

You-can-call-me-kal 6 Jan 2021 07:02:00 22,315 posts
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Yeah, it’s gone under the radar a bit. They’ve also adjusted it so you can be more flexible and only be furloughed part time etc. It’s really quite good.

Some details here:

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/working-parents-furlough-schools-closed-lockdown-employers-offer-covid-support-817538

Not-a-reviewer 6 Jan 2021 07:06:44 6,910 posts
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I’d love to do that but I know my company will refuse as we’re already massively understaffed and they can’t be bothered to recruit, wife has already been told they won’t let her.

Mageme 6 Jan 2021 07:50:44 2,310 posts
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Glad in a way to hear that I'm not the only one feeling massively stressed. I have both the kids (years 2 and 4) with me at home with the wife working mostly late until 7 everyday. With the constant interruptions and then setting up materials and lessons, then cooking, it's impossible to focus on work during the day really. I'm going to ask my manager to change the hours that I'm going to be available to work. I don't particularly want to log on after the kids go to sleep as I'm already knackered by then but it's the only way I can see this work until mid Feb.

Nexus_6 6 Jan 2021 08:56:35 5,685 posts
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Oh dear. This sounds like a lot of stress and lean times for people here.
I am looking on with trepidation - schools here are off this week with info coming out end of week for starting next week.
Partner is off Mondays and Tuesdays so can do the teaching then and we will need to share Wednesday to Friday. Se has quite a rigid timetable doing her lecturing for a Masters from home. I am more free flowing but not in a good way.
The boy is only in P1 so reading and writing and sums is the extent of it so shouldn’t be too hard. He loves doing his homework but can get overwrought if he doesn’t get something bright and I am not the most patient of persons if I have any stress....

arty 6 Jan 2021 10:10:24 809 posts
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So what's the deal here, are you feeling you need to do the lessons yourself or something? (to everyone)
We just stick our kids on front of MS Teams and let them get on with it for the most part. They're at secondary, is that the difference?

The learning they are doing is quite ropey though, the tech barely works and I've no idea about what they should be tackling so I'm not much use.

I just googled Oak Academy and that seems pretty useful.

GNS1991 6 Jan 2021 10:12:48 50 posts
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My mother works as a tutor (extra curricular activities for those, who did not understand the main subjects) for pupils up to grade ten, and, well, home-schooling (or remote learning) is... bad, really really bad.

Nexus_6 6 Jan 2021 10:17:21 5,685 posts
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arty wrote:
So what's the deal here, are you feeling you need to do the lessons yourself or something? (to everyone)
We just stick our kids on front of MS Teams and let them get on with it for the most part. They're at secondary, is that the difference?

The learning they are doing is quite ropey though, the tech barely works and I've no idea about what they should be tackling so I'm not much use.

I just googled Oak Academy and that seems pretty useful.

It seems all schools are different and some have very little material and some do not do online lessons. Some do pamphlets of work in PDF etc.

It’s a mixed bag which is why I thought a bread just for it would be good. Someone in the Coronavirus thread posted info about the BBC Lear img output which was great.

We have been sitting the 6 up old in front of a medical show on CBeebies and he is right into it. If that gets him learning something then great. I feel well prepared to work on his number and letter skills myself ahead of next weeks curriculum. I have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to the alphabet.

Dougs 6 Jan 2021 10:30:00 97,448 posts
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Yeah, it's with the younger kids where it becomes more challenging as they need more help. Even my 10 year old is pretty self sufficient so secondary would be much easier.

freddymercurystwin 6 Jan 2021 10:39:28 2,371 posts
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Fucking hate home schooling, I told my employers I would only be able to do part time (mornings) and they agreed to furlough me part time as I need to get home to take over from the exhausted missus (I know I'm fortunate in some respects to be able to do this), it fucking sucks, my 7 year old ain't the brightest spark and my 11 year old has been an awkward sod for about 3 years and his transition to secondary school has not been an easy one so neither want to do any bloody work, this is just compounding things ...

Deleted user 6 January 2021 10:42:15

As I have described elsewhere, we put our eight year old through a pretty solid six and a half hour day to emulate her normal school day.

This time around she has two 45 minute Zoom sessions per day (unlike last year when they eventually built up to two per week).

There is also a lot of downloadable material which seems to come mainly from White Rose and Twinkl. The quality of this is embarrassingly bad, from the point of view of grammar, spelling and technical accuracy.

We raised this via the school governors last year, but nothing has changed.

We’re lucky in that I am the homemaker rather than having other work just at the moment, and, whilst not a qualified teacher, I have a heck of a lot of experience teaching and training people in the professional and hobby worlds.

Dougs 6 Jan 2021 10:45:39 97,448 posts
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Twinkl is user provided content I think, hence the, errm, quality control issues.

Bichii 6 Jan 2021 10:49:47 4,214 posts
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I enjoy/love the home schooling . The stuff the school set mine is so bad. It's nearly always really basic shite they can do within 90 minutes. So much to their enjoyment I always set them more work once they have submitted the school stuff. Then I'll get them on some art/creative work then some excerise for an hour and they are done. So we all get a bit longer in bed in the morning , nice slow breakfast then upto 4 hours of school type stuff then more fun for the rest of the day. I could send them into school but they aren't doing proper lessons in school either so I don't see the point in sending them in. Between me and the ex we can pretty much cover them, I'll need to take maybe two or three days holiday early February but that's it and the same for him.

Not-a-reviewer 6 Jan 2021 10:55:51 6,910 posts
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The difference is, for a parent with the time, is that you’re providing one to one teaching. 90 minutes of material at home would be most of the day at school as you have to go through it with a large group of children and make sure they all get it.

The material will probably not be the best because teachers have had no time to prepare and have several other things to deal with as well, such as technology, an occasional parent who is a pain, and possibly their own kids.

Rodney 6 Jan 2021 11:00:18 4,871 posts
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My kids school spread their lessons across about four different apps (with different logins), with a print-out table setting out the activities/schedule (some workbook based, some on the iPad)

So you’d start a new activity, Have to get your head around it, log into the app, or sort out the printed materials, instruct the kids on how to do it, and then need to constantly supervise them so they actually did it. My children are different ages so I had manage different activities/tasks simultaneously.

All the while answering questions, dealing with interruptions, and managing them bickering with each other.

This was between trying to take work calls and meetings, and managing a team of people remotely.

One day, my wife left work, and by the time she got to work I was calling her to tell her “I can’t fucking cope”.

One day my wife came home and said “is that all you got them to do”. She’s a teacher so she couldn’t understand why I found it so hard. I didn’t react very well to this.

It wasn’t a good time. Genuinely felt like a failure for not being able to do it.

Edited by Rodney at 11:02:57 06-01-2021

Rodney 6 Jan 2021 11:05:29 4,871 posts
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In the end I found it much better to just book time out in my calendar and dedicate 1-2 hours for home schooling in the morning / afternoon, ignore work and catch up on stuff in the evening.

PazJohnMitch 6 Jan 2021 11:14:56 16,554 posts
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I do not have children so I will be no help on the actual difficulties of teaching and motivation. So cannot help there.

I do have experience in project management though, so I can say something on scheduling. (Something that in hindsight I think my teachers were rubbish at).

I would recommend trying to estimate how long it will actually take to do the tasks and then monitor how long it takes for your child to do them. If they are taking longer than you expect then you will probably need to increase the support you give them. (Or if they are getting through them quicker than expected you might be able to leave them unsupervised. Assuming they are doing a decent job).

You will probably find they will be self sufficient in a decent number of subjects but require help in others. So focus on the ones they need help at. And try and motivate them to work through the subjects they are good at on their own. (Probably far harder to do in practice than in theory).

If your kid is consistently finishing work really quickly then it will be worth looking at the syllabus to see if they have actually been set enough work to complete it. (You may need to set additional work for them yourself).

Edited by PazJohnMitch at 11:17:09 06-01-2021

GNS1991 6 Jan 2021 11:20:56 50 posts
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IMHO, parents, who don't know the subject, cannot help their kids. Hence why, at least in Lithuania, so many parents look for outside help, because a) they have too much work on their hands to bother with their child's education themselves or b) they do not know the subject and cannot explain it. Regardless, home-schooling requires quite a lot of additional time and preparation, so be sure that you are ready to tackle it on with your kid (until they are ready to work alone).

sport 6 Jan 2021 12:14:59 16,578 posts
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Found a great resource to help with home schooling. Got 2 on the way.

Nexus_6 6 Jan 2021 12:49:43 5,685 posts
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A wee tester menu eh sport?

sport 6 Jan 2021 12:56:49 16,578 posts
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I desperately need 2 PE teacher assistants so I've insisted on the fittest applicants. Like REAL fit.

hedben2013 6 Jan 2021 14:11:19 1,906 posts
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Hey guys look it's fine, just burn or hide your laptops and you can send them to school anyway

https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1346818439499968516?s=20

crashVoodoo 6 Jan 2021 15:16:45 6,944 posts
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I think home schooling would be better if the work they sent home was much more structured and could be worked within the documents.

Them literally shitting work into word and printing to PDF is beyond fucking furiating.