Homeschooling in a Pandemic

Homeschooling girl in a Pandemic

Guest Blog post by Headteacher Arabella Northey at Meta Prep

Following last week’s announcement, you might have had some flashbacks to the memories of the summer term with its various challenges.

 In the style of Timmy Mallett, I asked for a response to the word ‘homeschooling’ - originally they were limited to one-word: help! A quick survey of my Meta Prep parents revealed that most had questions about:

1. What is the most important thing for my child?

2. Is live teaching from teachers best or should I set tasks which we do in our own time?

3. How do we establish a routine?

4. Will they miss out? How will I know?

5. How will I coordinate different age groups / different devices?

6. How can I keep my children motivated

Here are my 3 top tips for homeschool support during lockdown 3.0.

1. Create a schedule: 

This seems like a simple enough task, right? But where to start? Start with your child. Talk to them about their schedule. Discuss their school timetable and base their day around that.  

You don’t need to do every subject, every day. That being said, make sure English and Maths are covered everyday; especially Year 5 children preparing for the 11+. Not necessary to sit down every morning from 9 until 11am and complete worksheet after worksheet. Instead, have a family reading session or get them to measure and calculate amounts in a recipe.  

If you have multiple children at home, try to line up their timetables so they can work on the same subjects together. They can often teach each other and come up with new ways of thinking.  

Ultimately, find a schedule that works for you and your family. And remember, do not stress if it is not followed exactly every day. Sometimes things go wrong and that is okay! Try the activity once more. If it still doesn’t work, scratch it from the list and move on.  

2. Set learning goals: 

Talk to your child about what they need to learn and would like to learn. Find out what motivates them, this is one of our starting points with every child.  

These can be used to set learning goals for each day or week. Again, this does not mean just print out a load of worksheets and get them to sit down and do them. Chances are, they will last 5 minutes before losing interest and not achieve anything at all.  

Balance tasks between virtual experiences, written work and physical activity. Be creative about how they go about learning the material. If your child loves being physical, go outside for a walk and have them add, subtract, multiply and divide house numbers, stop and read the signs you see, or research the history of your area (they might be surprised when looking at the walls of buildings and gate posts).  

If your child loves trains, create a bridge for a model train using only newspaper and sticky tape, watch a video about trains, write a story about a flying train, go to a train station and count how many trains come into the station in a certain timeframe, then put the information into a graph.  

Keep going back to those learning goals to make sure they are on track as this gives them ownership and responsibility.   

3. Don’t be their teacher  

This seems like an obvious one, but as parents it is often hard to remember that you are not a professional teacher and that this is temporary. Be a facilitator for your child’s learning rather than their teacher. Provide the opportunities to learn and let them discover the wonderful world around them.  

At Meta Prep, we train our teachers to be Cognitive Coaches, there is clear evidence in science that coaching children to understand the different forms of thinking and to equip them with the ability to self-reflect making excellent progress.  

If your child is finding answering questions or worksheets too easy, get them to create questions that they can ask you; remind them that they also need to have written down the answers, in case you get stuck! 

Use your own experiences and strengths, but when you get stuck or it all gets a bit too much, use the many resources available to you or come and ask us for resources. There are a multitude of websites with worksheets ready or  watch an educational documentary and  have your child write down the keys points.

 Three of my favourites resources:

Quizlet – sign up to our classroom or find quizzes covering every subject possible.

Twinkl – worksheets and presentations for everything

BBC Bitesize – for all ages

 Many schools have been preparing for remote learning since September and will be doing the best they can to ensure continuity and certainty for all their pupils so that there is limited interruption. It might feel like you are climbing a mountain and it is a seriously long way to the top, but just set out your first goal or two, break it down and leave the rest for another day!

Arabella Northey, Head Teacher of Meta Prep

Meta Prep is the complete online interactive solution for 11+ success for Years 4 & 5. With small groups and direct access to a Head teacher, Meta Prep partners with parents for selective senior school entry. Weaving fun, instilling key skills and learning behaviours to lift exam scores. At Meta Prep, we really want to ensure that it is a fun and enriching experience built on a strong foundation of learning principles. The goal is to get children thinking deeply, equipping them with a 'metacognitive' toolkit so that they understand how to learn and are set for life, able to sail through the 11+ and onto their next challenge with confidence.

Try us out, join us free for our first week of term: https://metapreponline.com/free-trial-lesson/

If you feel you would like to learning about the power of descriptive praise, emotion coaching, rules and rewards and positive discipline and help you to emerge as a more empowered parent with positive parenting strategies under your belt to impact behaviour and make for a happy harmonious home. join my Harmony at Home Course.