Make a Success of Online Schooling

Lockdown has brought numerous changes to the way we live and work. For many parents who are already struggling with working from home, the increase in domestic chores and in family stress, managing online schooling can feel like the final straw. Here are some tips to help you and your child cope with and succeed at online schooling.

Get organised

• Print off a copy of your child’s weekly timetable and display it where it will be easily visible when your child is working.
• Spend some time on a Sunday evening going through the work that has been set for the next week.
• Make sure that your child has access to all resources needed.
• If your child is working in Microsoft Teams (Office 365), OneNote, Google classroom or another online platform, take some time to familiarise yourself with how this software works. Your child will probably thoroughly enjoy being the expert and giving you a tour.
• Teachers will often post weekly resources and assignments online in files under their subject. Check with your child that they know how to access files, to complete and submit assignments online and how to ask questions on these platforms.
• Sometimes, especially for primary school, scanned copies of textbook pages (for those who don’t have all their textbooks at home) are also posted on the parent communication portal, e.g. the D6.
• Spend some time working out what textbooks your child has at home with them and what pages need to be printed for your child to be able to complete the week’s work.
• Sit with your child and work through the coming week’s timetable, subject by subject checking that they know where each resource is under each subject, that teaching videos or YouTube clips open and that they are aware of assignments and homework exercises. This gives your child a good overview of the week and helps them to prepare mentally for what they will be doing. It also gives you time to troubleshoot problems when you have the capacity to do so.
• On Monday morning, when the school day starts, check in with your child on what they need to do.
• High school children are generally fine to work their way through their daily timetable independently.
• Primary children might need you to recap on tasks needed for blocks of time (e.g. the first two lessons until playtime; the two lessons from playtime to lunchtime; and the last two lessons of the day from lunch to the end of the day).
• Pre-primary children will need a more hands-on approach. This might mean negotiating work time with a partner or planning ahead to have all resources set up so that you can spend a quick 20 minutes introducing the activity, completing the teaching and then leave them to complete the independent work part while you check in on emails and return phone calls.

Workspace organisation

• Help your school age child organise his/her workspace so that s/he has access to a well-lit, quiet, uncluttered area with a table and chair where s/he can work uninterrupted.
• This is also a great time to demonstrate the value of organising work into folders/files, especially for primary children who might still be using workbooks, worksheets and photocopies.
• Help your child to make a folder for each subject (the supermarkets sell cheap plastic folders) and organise resources by subject. This makes it much easier to grab the correct subject folder when it is needed than to page through piles of books and papers.
• Assist your child in sticking in any work done during the day into the correct book so that everything is organised and has a place. If your child’s workspace is organised, s/he is likely to feel organised and confident about approaching tasks.

Routine

For online schooling to work, it has to be treated like real school thus sticking to a good routine is essential.

• Wake your child at the same time each morning and encourage them to get dressed, eat breakfast and wash before school starts.
• Ensure that your child is also getting enough sleep and is eating healthily.
• Follow your child’s timetable regarding play and lunch breaks as well as lesson durations. This timetable will be familiar to your child thus will provide structure, predictability and comfort.
• Online school is unfamiliar and thus has the potential to be anxiety-provoking, taking the uncertainty out of it by following a predictable timetable will help to reduce any anxiety.
• It will also make the transition back to real school much easier.
• When it is time for your child to have a play/lunch/end of school break, make sure that they leave the room (and the screen) they have been working in and get outside if possible.
• Encouraging children to have a change of scenery and a change of activity is crucial for them to be able to return to lessons refreshed and able to refocus.

Exercise

Try to build exercise into your child’s daily routine. If you think about how much running, playing, walking to classes, organised PE lessons and sport your child usually participates in, you’ll see the potential for lack of activity that the lockdown can cause.

• For younger children (if you can coordinate your own work breaks to coincide with their playtime), starting a game of “Simon Says”, “Mr Wolf What’s the Time?”, “Tag” or “Stuck in the Mud,” can be a great way to encourage them to have a bit of a run around and let off steam.
• If you can’t break at the same time and need your child to run around independently, leave out skipping ropes, Hula Hoops and chalk out Hopscotch squares on paving stones during breaks. Planning a family obstacle course for them and/or the dogs to complete is also a fun way for them to be active.
• Speak to high school children about the value of exercise both for their focus and concentration as well as their general and mental health and discuss the options with them. Many teenagers will probably already be motivated to stay in shape.
• There are lots of workouts, yoga and dance fitness tutorials available online for there to be something which will suit everyone’s taste. Try to get your teenager to commit to exercising at least 3 times a week for about half an hour per session.

Support

Online school is about children working independently and parents supporting them in doing this. It is not about parents teaching children their lessons all day.

• Set your child up with the work they have been given and leave them to get on with it, with the understanding that if they need assistance, they will call you.
• If you find that your child is constantly needing your support, ask yourself whether this is a confidence or attention-seeking issue or whether the work really is unmanageable for them to do independently.
• If you find that the work is too complicated for your child to work independently then contact your child’s teacher. Remember teachers are also new to online schooling and are trying their best to teach in unfamiliar conditions. Feedback on how activities are working for your child will help them tailor future planning.
• Check-in with your child during the day as to how their work is going, this will help your child feel less isolated and will convey your interest. A hug or an offer of a drink or a muffin as you walk past are also great ways of showing your support.
• If you have the time, go through your child’s timetable with them in the afternoon and check that s/he has completed all work and whether there were any issues.
• If work hasn’t been submitted online, it will be useful for your child if you mark it with them and give them feedback thereby validating his/her efforts.

You might find that high school-age children become demotivated or overwhelmed by having to constantly read, understand and complete tasks independently within given times. Should they hit snags, listen, empathise and ask what they can do to sort it out. They often aren’t asking you to solve the problem, they are just wanting a bit of empathy and acknowledgement that it is difficult for them. Express how proud you are of the motivation and discipline they have shown thus far and highlight, although you know it is challenging for them, all the valuable life skills they are learning from this process (see Life Skills below).

Your own availability to support

• Should you often be unavailable to support during the day due to your own work commitments, discuss this with your children beforehand.
• Agree on a system whereby perhaps if you have a “Do not disturb” sign on the door it means you are on a conference call or in a Zoom session thus cannot be interrupted.
• If your child needs an explanation for something, suggest having a notebook ready to jot down anything they need to discuss with you later and then make sure that you arrange a time in the evening to go through each issue.
• Primary age children often get stuck if they can’t complete a sum or understand an instruction so you might also need to brainstorm various strategies they can use if this happens and you are unavailable, e.g. email the teacher, ask a friend, use Google or go onto something else and come back to the task later after they have managed to chat to you.
• You might also need to discuss what they can do if they finish a session early (e.g. read a book, draw a picture, go outside to play) instead of coming to interrupt you.
• You may be feeling underqualified to help, particularly if your child is doing advanced chemistry, algebra or geometry which you haven’t done for the last 20 years but by using Google to search for teaching examples, you are modelling to them that all problems can be solved with time and determination.

Life Skills

• Online schooling is unchartered territory for all of us and can sometimes feel lonely and difficult for your child.
• It is hard to switch from being in a busy classroom where you are told what to do, when and how to do it to now have to motivate yourself to work alone every day, to manage your own time and to solve problems independently where previously you put your hand up and received direction.
• Engaging in this process is teaching your child valuable life skills (self-discipline, time management, independence, self-reliance and problem solving) which s/he will use for the rest of his/her life.
• Support him/her in the process of developing these life skills by putting the structure in place so that s/he can succeed and by giving lots of encouragement, praise and empathy.
• Forgive yourself and your child for days that don’t go according to plan. At the end of the day, we can all only do our best and that is enough for now.

Wendy Corfe is a counselling psychologist in private practice in Hilton, KZN. She has three children of her own and lives on a farm in the Dargle. She loves working with families in order to assist them in achieving optimal functioning and particularly enjoys doing play therapy with children to help them process and heal from the life challenges they may encounter.