(In case you weren’t aware, these messages appear on both on our website and by email a little later.)
Yesterday, we talked about two main things:
- how tough it might be to get back into the swing of things with home learning
- some new daily lessons available online from Oak National Academy and BBC Bitesize
This BBC article links these two points. The article flags up the importance of routine, and offers three top tips to achieve a safe structure for the day (and one that will help parents working from home, too).
…what is more important, say educationalists, is maintaining a degree of normality, rather than worrying about a child’s progress in English or maths. Home-schooling for now is “about encouraging parents to help their children create regular routines and study habits”, says Prof Becky Francis, of the UCL Institute of Education.
In an attempt to support you more with the home learning, we’re making one important change: from Wednesday, teachers will publish the home learning at 7pm the day before.
This change stems from requests that we publish the tasks the night before so that you can prepare:
- some parents like to have things printed off in advance
- some parents want to prepare for the home learning at a time when they themselves free, ie when they’re not working from home at the same time
- some parents say their child is awake early and wanting to get going sooner
- some parents even mention the clash with PE with Joe Wicks starting at the same time!
So, tomorrow, home learning will go live at 9am (the usual time), but also tomorrow, there’ll be another post at 7pm – this will be Thursday’s home learning. And we’ll continue like this; for example, Monday’s home learning will be published on Sunday at 7pm (with the Monday date).
Thanks to the various parents for making this suggestion.
Finally today, a lot of families rely on friends, grandparents and organisations to help with childcare. Your child might be missing these people just now.
The Invisible String by Patrice Karst might provide comfort – it’s read here by one of our Sphere Federation teaching assistants (thanks, Gemma!).