Your children are expecting a beach party. Credit: Sebastien Bozon/ AFP/Getty
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Week one, went like a dream. We had shelves full of resources, neatly labelled work drawers, and a detailed timetable. The lessons had gone well too: English, Maths, French and even a little Greek. To cap it all, we organised an end-of-week assembly for our only pupil. Having taken the decision to home educate, we recreated school in our home.
It didn’t last. By the end of that first month, the situation was quite different. We hadn’t stuck to the timetable, we hadn’t looked at half the resources, and the weekly assembly had quietly faded away. But my daughter was happily learning and my wife and I, two schoolteachers embarking on a new educational adventure, were beginning to find our feet.
And now all parents are facing that same challenge — but with little less time to get ready. So let me offer some advice.
1 Be realistic
You may be planning a boot camp, but your children are probably expecting a beach party. You want to set up school in your home but they may think the summer holidays have begun early. So a good idea is to take away all distractions, electronic and otherwise; you should fix a timetable that is clear but not so crammed full of activities that you have no wriggle room; and be realistic. Children thrive on structure even though they often kick against it, so create a timetable with them rather than for them and build in breaks for both them and you.
2 Listen to school — a bit
Your child’s school will doubtless send work home that needs to be done, which will help you make the adjustment to home tutoring, but there are potential pitfalls here, the most obvious of which is that much of this will be online — so your child may develop an umbilical bond with the computer. Spending time online is inevitable these days; but it is not a fundamental human right. Even though it might come as a surprise for your child to learn this, take the opportunity to branch out beyond the computer.
3 Get outside
Many children are now, quite rightly, concerned about saving the planet but how many of them can identify the trees, birds and animals in their own back garden? The highlight of our week was my daughter seeing a frog laying its eggs in our tiny pond and the reason she noticed is because we have been keeping a nature journal. Looking in a pond and seeing – really seeing – nature at work can be the first step on a greater ecological journey. And, before I get too carried away, I should also acknowledge that getting outside has the added advantage of keeping both you and your children sane.
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