Ahead of Melbourne’s return to remote learning, a study reveals how parents coped the first time
As Prep to Year 10 students in locked-down areas return to remote learning, a study reveals parents felt the first stint was “torture”. But experts say the second time won’t be as taxing on families if they follow these key tips. Need help? Submit your remote learning questions.
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SUBMIT YOUR REMOTE LEARNING QUESTIONS. Marcellin College teacher Jill Fitzsimons will answer readers’ questions today. Send your question by 2pm to news@heraldsun.com.au, scroll down and leave a comment in the comments field, or head to facebook.com/heraldsun and join the conversation there. Her expert answers will then be published in this article this afternoon.
Nearly one in five parents thought home schooling was “torture” which gave them a new-found respect for teachers, a new study has found.
A further 20 per cent said it was a “next level” experience which put them on edge, and 40 per cent said it was tough but they coped. Only 18 per cent said they liked it, according to The Marketing to Mums #IsoMums report.
The research drew on interviews from 1385 parents and carers – most of whom were millennial mothers.
The findings come as 700,000 state school kids from prep to year 10 from Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire return to home schooling on Monday.
The study also found mothers were kept awake at night during isolation by fears they or their partner will become unemployed.
But many felt highly resilient, with 38 per cent saying they were “just getting on with things”.
Marketing to Mums CEO Katrina McCarter said the study, which is free to download at marketingtomums.com.au, also found a big issue for many mothers was the need to balance work and home schooling.
“Mums made it clear that remote learning added greater pressure on their day with many also expected to maintain their productivity at work,” she said.
Despite this, Ms McCarter said many mothers also “relished the slower pace with no commute, school drop offs and pick-ups and not having to live up to society’s expectation of how they look”.
“Less make up, more comfortable clothes, even ditching the bra and enjoying longer sleep time, have been enjoyed,” she said.
Victoria, a mother of two from Fairfield, said she felt better prepared for home schooling this time around.
“I feel like there’s an end date even though it’s still unclear. It will still be a big challenge but I feel well supported by the school,” she said.
Victoria’s children, Eddie, 7, and Monique, 5, are in grade one and prep at St Anthony’s Primary in Alphington.
“Last time the kids loved it as they got their work done and then we had time to play,” she said.
REMOTE LEARNING 2.0 SHOULD BE BETTER
Students, parents and teachers are buckled up for a second run of remote learning.
But after the highs and lows of last time, remote learning 2.0 is expected to be a smoother ride when it kicks into gear on Monday for more than 700,000 kids in Prep to Year 10.
Knowing what to expect, being better prepared mentally, having a stronger grasp of the technology and learning from what worked and what didn’t last time are the keys to not just surviving — but thriving — during remote learning 2.0.
Teachers and child experts say mental wellbeing should play a bigger role this time around, urging parents to be kinder to themselves and allowing more time for kids to connect with family and with friends online.
Lessons are likely to have a greater focus on fun and fostering connections, from more group work and class discussion to online show-and-tell for younger students.
Shorter classes, more breaks and homing in on key lesson content will also sharpen the second remote learning experience.
Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive Joe Tucci said the main message out of the first round of remote learning was that parents should not be so hard on themselves.
“A lot of parents were worried that they were not going to be able to meet the expectations of the school and the educational needs of their kids,” he said.
“They found the stress of worrying about that got in the way of being able to enjoy the experience of being at home with their kids.
“But kids don’t need their parents to be experts on everything they are learning. They just need them to be calm, fun where they can and to not make the learning experience tense and more difficult.”
Dr Tucci, a psychologist and social worker, said parents were not expected to be teachers and their role should be to “read the mood” of their child to ensure they were in a good frame of mind to learn at home.
“Parents can lighten up a bit and do something to bring fun back into the experience for children,” he said.
“If things are too serious and too tense, then kids won’t be best placed to learn.”
He said this approach was especially important for the second phase of remote learning because kids would be experiencing “COVID grief” after their hopes of returning to a more normal life were dashed by the second wave of the virus.
For them this grief meant an amplified sense of separation from their friends, school community and sports clubs, along with worries about the impact of the virus itself.
The team of teachers at Kids News, a free online literacy tool that presents the latest news stories in a child-friendly format, agreed mental health should be a top priority.
The team also said supervised social catch ups for groups and classes should be built into homeschooling days, and there should be greater access to electronic devices and internet services for kids in need.
Monash University education expert Professor Neil Selwyn said the “digital divide” was one of the greatest challenges of the first round of remote learning.
“Although governments and schools are loaning devices and 4G hot spots out, this still makes it a very uneven playing-field,” he said.
“Even well-resourced families have struggled with two parents working from home, and two kids learning from home all fighting for Wi-Fi and power-points.”
HOW EVERYONE FEELS ABOUT REMOTE LEARNING
THE PARENTS
Homeschooling is a big undertaking in the Buckland and Hay household.
As a blended family, there will be at times four kids from three different schools doing their lessons from their Glen Iris home.
And in the middle of it, parents Andrew Buckland and Julia Hay will also be working under the same roof.
Despite the enormity of the task, Mr Buckland said the family was ready for round two.
“I’m feeling OK about it, I think we’ve got a really good balance here,” Mr Buckland said.
“I think the kids are ultimately better off at school. But some schools are doing remote learning better than others and we’re lucky that our kids are of an age where the academic impact is lessened.
“So Julia and I are using this as an opportunity to focus on the areas that our kids need some help in while we can have some one-on-one time with them, which their teachers obviously don’t get to do in the classroom.
“It’s just trying to take the positives out of it and what we can do with this time. We can’t control it, so we just need to make the most of it.”
Mr Buckland, who works for Camp Australia, said that like many parents he worried about whether he was doing things right and was available when the kids needed him the first time around.
Juggling the spread of age groups and the schools’ different approaches to remote learning had proved tricky — Logan, 12, is in Year 7 at Ashwood High, Jackson, 9, is in Grade 3 at St Patrick’s Primary in Pakenham, while Zachary, 10, is in Grade 4 and Indiah, 7, is in Grade 2 at Solway Primary in Ashburton.
But the family had some great strategies for coping and even having some fun during remote learning. They tried to start each day with some exercise, eat lunch together, take a family walk in afternoon and do plenty of fun physical activities during the day.
They also built a treehouse and will undertake another family project this time around, although haven’t yet decided what that will be.
They set up an art and craft area that the kids could help themselves to and created a “Brady Bunch Shop” of lollies and treats that the kids could purchase from with pretend money they earned by doing chores but also lost if they did the wrong thing.
Mr Buckland said parents could tap into lots of great educational resources online, including many of Camp Australia’s activities.
THE TEACHERS
A steep learning curve when coronavirus first slammed the door shut on classrooms has teachers much better placed to deliver lessons remotely this time around.
Not only will they be more adept at using technology to deliver lessons online, but they also know what works best and what matters most to their students, according to Marcellin College teacher Jill Fitzsimons.
“Last time it was all so sudden,” said the years 9 and 10 English and literacy teacher.
“Schools are much more ready now. We’ve had that experience, we’ve learnt from it.”
Ms Fitzsimons, who oversees staff development at the Catholic boys’ college in Bulleen, said remote learning technologies had improved as had teachers’ ability to use them.
The mother of three said seeing her own daughters’ reactions to the second round of stage three restrictions had helped sharpen her focus.
“All the things that they thought were coming back — things like basketball, dance, drama — were off again,” she said. “It reminds you as a teacher how hard you’re going to have to work to build connections and have the engagement because you’re going to be teaching kids just like your own who think ‘oh my god, not more of this, more boredom, more loneliness’.”
THE STUDENTS
AS twins Rachel and Sophie Fitzsimons log in to remote learning again on Monday, older sister Lucy will head off to Year 11 classes at school.
The Year 9 students wish they didn’t have to revisit remote learning, saying they will miss the regular school day routine and their classmates.
“I’m definitely a student who likes to work with my friends and also ask a lot of questions because I think that means I’m working to the best of my ability,” said Sophie, who attends Our Lady of Mercy College in Heidelberg.
“It was a bit of a struggle doing that online last time because we didn’t have that face-to-face connection.”
But they are keeping a positive mindset.
“I would love to go back to school but we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do so we can get through this,” said Rachel, who goes to Santamaria College in Northcote.
Rachel said she hoped her teachers would ramp up the interaction with students this time around.
“I’d like to have a Google Meets every lesson because it will allow us to connect with our teachers and ask questions,” she said.
She said it worked well when her teachers posted the work that needed to be done at the start of each class and came up with fun activities, such as the Santamaria’s Got Talent competition that got students to send in video performances that the rest of the school voted on.
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* Leave your question for Marcellin College teacher Jill Fitzsimons in the comments field below.