We’ve spoken to a few parents and the message is pretty much the same. It all started well. Most parents viewed home schooling as an interesting if challenging opportunity but one they were capable of handling. They would set a daily routine, the school would provide the work, the children would do it with some help from their parents, and then the school would mark it, and all would be well.
The trouble with home schooling
But what’s quickly become very clear from the parents we’ve spoken to is that it’s not working out like that. In fact, parents are wrestling with a multitude of factors and home schooling is proving much harder and less successful than they ever thought.
Sound familiar?
The schoolwork being set by school is not working well. Some schools seem to be really on the ball, others are still getting to grips with this new regime. But parents and children alike have reported to us that they often struggle to understand the work that’s been set. What’s more, families are also reporting that the work has no context. One parent explained, “My children have been set random bits of maths schoolwork to do. But there’s no background of learning to it and no (or limited) feedback so it feels like it has little value. And as I’m struggling to understand what they’re supposed to be doing, I don’t know how to help my child!”
Some children need extra help. For many parents, they know their child needs additional support with their learning. For others, this has been the first time they’ve really seen some of their children’s work in detail. We spoke to one parent who said, “It appears my son has been living a life completely devoid of grammar and punctuation up until now. It’s really hard to understand what he’s writing, and I feel we’ve got to go right back to basics. The trouble is, I haven’t got the time or the know-how to teach him and I’ve never heard of a front ended adverbial!”
Online resources aren’t as good as they seem. As one parent explained, “I just assumed I could use free online resources to help teach my children, but when I went online, I just felt overwhelmed. There is loads out there but sifting through what is relevant, helpful and in line with what my children are learning is a full-time job, all in itself. I downloaded one set of English learning, which looked great at first, but it was so complicated and boring, it turned out being a complete waste of time.”
Too much screen time is a big issue for lots of parents. One parent told us, “With my kids at home 24/7 at the moment, it’s a big, daily battle to minimise the time they spend in front of the screen. Most of their homework is online too and then they want to play on the Xbox. I want to get them away from the screen.”
It’s just hard! Perhaps the most common response we’ve had from parents so far is that home schooling is just much harder than you’d think. Children and parents alike are coping with a range of complex emotions from boredom, anxiety, frustration and stress. Lots of children just don’t respond well to being taught by their parents. Some parents are more than happy to admit that they are not good teachers and above all else, lots of families are trying to juggle their own commitments working from home with schooling their child. To be fair, all this was never going to be easy.
We listened and we came up with a plan
With possibly months of school closures ahead, and as a family business with decades of experience of teaching the core skills of maths and English and supporting the school curriculum, we knew there had to be some way we could help.
Bespoke offline learning
So, we are putting together bespoke tutoring packages. These involve setting your child approximately 10 pieces of work to be done throughout the week. Each piece will take from 5 to 15 minutes. The work is designed to be printed off at home, to ensure that children get away from their screens. When the work is done, it will be sent back to your child’s tutor who will provide feedback and customise future work to meet your child’s requirements.
Importantly, the work set will be designed to help them in any areas where they’re struggling as well as building on their strengths. We also want to ensure that the work we set is meaningful. In other words, it’s relevant to and supports the school curriculum but also flows logically so that children don’t feel like they’re doing random bits of work.
Minimal parental input
What’s more, the work is designed in a way that requires minimum input from parents. You don’t have to spend hours sifting through online portals and resources. Just print what we send you. Your child should be able to work through it independently, with at most, the occasional minor request for help from you. And by keeping the momentum going over the next few weeks or months, it gives your child something to do, and should ensure that not only do they not lose any learning but they may well go back to school doing better than before.
Affordable tutoring
We’d love to be able to give our tutoring away for free but of course, we can’t as we also have our own costs to meet and we desperately want to be able to continue to support our team. But we have made our packages extremely affordable and exceptional value for money. These are difficult times and our intention is to make our support as accessible to as many people as possible in order to help ease some of the many pressures that families are currently under.
