• Routine: Have a routine that fits with your family life. Maybe you want to continue your existing routines and start home schooling at 9am. Our approach is to start at 8am and finish at about 12:30, freeing up the afternoon for work or other activities. This is made up of a combination of set lessons, breaks and other activities (indoors and out).

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• Breaks: We have breaks in between and they are not ‘timetabled’ as such – it’s a vital key to good concentration, general behaviour and attitude to learning. Also, it’s a great tool to motivate them for example finishing a piece of work that require focus and speed.

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• Motivate: Praise twice as much as you criticize. You know your child best, and you will certainly learn much more about them in the coming months, so be creative in your motivation strategies. Praise and rewards work very well. A great motivator is showing faith in their ability and judgement, it boosts their confidence and gives them an ‘organic’ dose of motivation. As for rewards, you may have to resort to more creative ways. Remember it’s not always about extra time on the internet, or a treat like an ice cream – a great way is give them your undivided time for 30mins. They get to have you to play, read, chat or have fun with them anyway they want. This at first may seem not to work, but once engendered in them with the combination of praise will develop exceptional bonds, they want to do things for you and themselves. Self-motivation is one of the most important keys of success in life, so teach and show them how.

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• Experience and knowledge: You may feel daunted by the task, especially if you are not a teacher or educator. However, do remember you have innate skills, knowledge and experience. This is a unique but an exceptional special time you have been given. An opportunity to share who you are and what you are good at and contribute to society. If this all they learn from you in the next months, they will see you in a very different light. Do the best in the areas you feel comfortable or good at, then use the excellent and many resources available to help you in your weaker areas of knowledge and understanding. I can assure you; you are going to learn a lot of new interesting things as well.

 

• Curriculum: Having to follow their existing school curriculum will probably feel like the only option for many as they want to maintain their current academic levels with the least disruption.  We have taken a different route. We mix a structured learning based on curriculum requirements in combination with the child’s interest (i.e. partly child lead on their interest or desire to learn a topic). We interweave all this with developing life skills. They may not one day thank you for algebra or grammar lessons, but they definitely will for the life skills you imparted. We all learn best when we have a real interest in something – identify and harness that in your children and develop that. 

 

• Give them little projects to work on by themselves, this installs self-study, work ethic and getting use to meeting a set deadline.

 

• Use every opportunity to learn – from cooking, tinkering in the garage, sitting in while you do your work, even the daily walk outside (when you can). Even washing hands, you can talk about and explore the chemical composition of soap and how that works to break down the dirt. There is going to be many opportunities, just start having a ‘learning mindset’. 

 

• Get them to teach: Through self-study on a topic they come and give a lesson to all in the household. Set a topic and structure to how and what format they need to present. Equip them with resources, such as access to the internet, PC and printing – although you may need to first do lessons on using PowerPoint – and you will also be learning then!

 

• Allow them to make mistakes! (Have a good dose of laughter and patience ready)

 

• Build external social relationship – currently this will be restricted to phone, video and other ‘chat’ options. Do not be too harsh on their daily quotas, certainly monitor it, but ensure they have resources and access to do so. Encourage them but above all make sure they are ‘digitally’ safe.

 

• Read: If in doubt – read! With them, too them and create a fun and relaxed environment where they can feel comfortable to read to you and others. Encourage self-reading, this will be the greatest educational gift you can ever give. Fun activities for reading aloud to others without making it obvious could be enacting little plays where all have a part to read and play (even get them to write the play)

 

• Reasoning: All the knowledge in the world is of little value without reasoning. Age appropriately challenge them in their thinking, ask them questions to make them think or defend their thinking. Get them to present a case on whatever the topic and defend that – deliberately give them something that is opposing in their views to allow them to formulate creative and constructive thinking to enable them to reason on a topic. 

 

• Negotiate – there is going to be many opportunities during isolation to develop this very important life skill, which will stand them in very good stead in life. Although beware, you might be outfoxed in future for extra Xbox time!    

 

• It’s not always going to be fun (although aim to make it as pleasant as possible). There is going to be challenging days, prepare yourselves for it. Tackle those days or moments with a ‘treat’ activity if needed – going outdoors, a film together or some other activity or learning to break the difficult moments. 

 

• Importantly this is about maintaining and further developing you child’s interest and love for leaning – do not force it upon them. You do not want resentment in your relationship long term.