Read the rest of my Corona Lockdown diaries here.
Monday morning, week 6 of lockdown.
The week has barely begun, and already we have hit dizzying new heights in the Taylor household.
The youngest child (4 years old and in reception) has written one letter (I, if you were interested) and left, throwing his book on the table and slamming the door dramatically behind him, tears streaming down his cheeks, following a heated disagreement about what constitutes ‘the weekend’.
(I merely suggested that the ONE sentence he is required to write about the weekend’s activities could in fact include anything he did last week – or he could just make it up completely – because his teacher will never know. I am, of course, a total a baddie and he’s going to tell daddy on me and everything).
The other one – the six year old teenager – has, after taking one glance at her worksheet, suddenly and quite inexplicably decided that she needs to tidy her bedroom and disappeared entirely.
Based on previous attempts to get her to tidy up the festering hell hole that she inhabits but I am not allowed to enter, I estimate that she will emerge in about 45 minutes to an hour with a new hairstyle.
Meanwhile, I am sat on my own in the playroom/temporary classroom, drinking tea and wondering why I didn’t put any wine on the Tescos order.
Honestly, I’m down to my last bottle and for some reason thought that maybe it was time to cut down, but now I can clearly see the error of my ways.
Right now we are entering our sixth week of lockdown, and our fourth week of ‘homeschooling’.
I use inverted commas because let’s face it, this is not homeschooling.
Nowhere near.
Homeschooling has fully engaged parents dedicating their time and full attention to the task at hand. There is a curriculum based around the children, who will go on a wealth of visits and trips for learning experiences, they’ll have adequate resources and support and socialisation with other homeschooling families.
This on the other hand is two parents who despite not being stupid (I promise) know fuck all about phonics.
Two parents who never considered careers in teaching because they appreciate that endless patience is not one of their many talents. Parents who never remotely contemplated the option of homeschooling their children because they quite like them and want everyone to survive, doing what they can around work and everything else they have going on and trying not to fuck it up completely.
Despite their initial enthusiasm for creating a ‘classroom’ at home, it’s safe to say my kids no pretend to longer care.
The school is setting work for them to do, so the first thing we do each Monday is log on to the website and print out a small forest’s worth of paper. I wish I’d invested in printing ink stocks before this whole thing went down.
We have found that the least painful option is to attempt to get their daily half hour of school work done as early as possible (I’m talking 10am here, not 8. I’m not that person), leaving the vast majority of the day wide open for tearing the house apart, whinging for snacks, putting on plays (GOD HELP US) and that one precious hour when we get to leave the house and walk at the slowest pace known to man shouting ‘hurry up’ every few steps.
If Ofsted were to give us a rating, I’d say it would definitely be requiring improvement. A lot of improvement.
I’ve read numerous posts on social media from people who predict that the popularity of homeschooling is going to increase massively once this quarantine bollocks is over and done with; for my part, I will be queuing up outside the classroom door (possibly the night before), thrusting my children in as soon as it opens and running away as fast as possible.