Parent study reveals mixed report on remote school academics
More than 400,000 Victorian students could need additional academic support after remote learning, while some parents made startling findings in favour of schooling from home, a new study has revealed.
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More than 400,000 Victorian students could need additional academic support after remote learning, while country kids have fared much worse than their city counterparts.
Two in five parents believed their child learnt less during home education, a Centre for Independent Studies report revealed.
The survey of 800 parents across Victoria, NSW and QLD showed across those states, an equivalent 1.25 million students had fallen behind.
But the study also showed more than a quarter of Victorian mums and dads believed their child was a better learner at home than at school.
A total 27 per cent of Victorian parents thought their kids’ learning was better at home — a much higher rate to the 20 per cent of parents in NSW and QLD.
Those with children in the early years of high school were especially prone to making this finding.
Fewer opportunities for bullying or distraction of peers in the classroom were marked as possible reasons why.
Researchers said the results could open the door to more flexible school environments in the future.
Melbourne mum Zita van Zaanten found the academic learning of her older son Max, 11, were better at home than school.
“There were no distractions,” she said.
“There are lots of distractions at school and he finds it difficult to concentrate — at home, there’s not much to distract him.”
However, she believed his social skills were just as important, and he’d missed out on being with friends.
There was little difference in the learning of youngest son Alex, 7, she said.
The study also exposed a divide between metro and regional students during remote learning.
One in four regional students never had online instruction with their teacher — compared to about one in 10 for metro pupils.
Country kids were also less likely to have direct access to teachers.
Research fellow Glenn Fahey said remote learning had “exacerbated the lack of confidence in the regions”.
“It’s really indicative that the justification of closures in regional areas is a lot weaker (due to smaller case numbers of COVID-19), yet the impact is greater,” he said.
Overall, he believed the study and experience of remote learning during the pandemic showed that schools needed to consider greater flexibility in how they teach.
He was “very much surprised” that 27 per cent of Victorian parents felt their child learned better at home.
“It’s an opportunie time to have the conversation — is the classroom being full time face-to-face the ideal mode for learning for students?” he said.
“How do we build in flexibility to a school system that is incredibly rigid?
“I think it has to be a bit of a wakeup call to the lack of flexibility that exists.”
The study comes as federal ministers urged Premier Daniel Andrews to return students of all year levels to school, citing mental health impacts.
But Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said there were still positive cases in kids aged 10 to 19, though they had fallen.
“We’re absolutely mindful of the mental health pressures for these kids and what it means not to be connected to their learning environment on site,” he said.
‘We want to get them back as soon as possible but we absolutely want to do it safely.”
Prof Sutton said primary schools were less of a risk for outbreaks because children over 12 were more likely to spread the virus to adults.
All metro primary school children will return on-site by October 12, along with VCE students, while kids at stand alone primary schools in the country return from October 5.
There remains no set date for year 7 to 10 students to return, though October 26 has been flagged.