Last Updated on 15 April 2023 by Colette
Ahead of the decision to close schools and ultimately to lockdown the country, I was really wobbly – I was super emotional about my 40th birthday plans being spoiled, about not being able to work, about the kids missing out on so much school or time with their friends, about Ben not being able to finish primary school properly, about the thought of not being able to see anyone for weeks (or even months) on end . . . But I knew that ultimately, once we were “in it” and able to get on with it, I’d feel a lot better and more settled about the whole thing! The uncertainty and fear were the biggest issues for me, once I knew there would be no school and once I knew we were locked down, I was almost able to make peace with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly something I’m pleased about, but I feel more accepting of it now.
At the start of the first full week of school closures, we sat down together and planned our day out in half hour slots – the idea being that it would stop the kids from spending too long on one thing and getting bored. As the week went by we realised we needed to switch the slots up a bit and that basically school had set more work than we had anticipated so this pushed our scheduling on a bit – clearly this is no bad thing as it’s keeping them all busy! (Fair play to their teachers who have been super present online, sending them work, commenting on the things they’ve submitted and generally keeping in touch.)
I created a separate timetable for each child on the basis they would have different things they wanted to do and different amounts of school work to complete. I also added a list of tasks for each of them to do before we start our day – simple things like brushing their teeth, making their beds or emptying the dishwasher. These tasks are normal day to day things that they do anyway but I wanted to put them on the timetable to help them see they needed to have them done before 9am so that we were ready to start.
As well as daily PE sessions with Joe Wicks, Cosmic Kids Yoga, reading, and their set school work, we set aside some time for what we’ve called “Passion Projects“. By this I mean anything outside of the work that school has set but that they want to learn about or practice.
We spent the first morning with a pack of post it notes brainstorming ideas – everything from ‘listen to a science podcast’ to ‘learn how to edit video’ or ‘plant seeds’.
I’ve published a full list of our suggestions in another post in case it’s useful to anyone!
Once we’d come up with our list of Passion Projects the kids added them to the gaps in their time table – spreading them out over the week. As mentioned earlier, my thinking behind this was that if they’d taken ownership of planning their own time, they would be more likely to stick to the timetable. Having the timetable set out like that also meant I could plan for any resources they might need and work out who would need my time – for example if Ben wanted me to teach him to edit video, then the girls needed to be independently occupied on something else during that session or if they wanted to play a board game it’s better that they all had that on the same slot and could play together.
Something else we planned for each day was quiet time in their own bedrooms – this “sanity separation” meant we should all get a short break from each other’s faces and was probably more for my benefit than theirs!
I planned in a set break time (at around the same time as they would usually have it at school) for a snack and some fresh air – be that a walk around the block or playing in the garden and I also put in a fixed lunch time so that I could bring them back to their tasks easily after they’ve eaten and played in the garden a bit more.
Of course as was to be expected, things didn’t entirely go to plan – as I’ve mentioned above, school have set far more work for the kids than we expected and completing their tasks on Seesaw has generally taken them all morning – meaning that after lunch we’ve done reading and Cosmic Yoga and then I’ve sent them all off to do their own thing. Planning a routine at the start of the week was definitely helpful and we agreed the start this was something we’d review every Monday morning so we could figure out what had worked and what hadn’t. The Passion Projects haven’t happened as yet but we have talked about doing those things during the Easter holidays when there won’t be any work set.
We took Tuesday off learning just because it was my birthday and quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered. Originally Dave and I had planned a spa day but of course that couldn’t happen so once we knew the kids would be off school we thought we’d take a drive out to the coast – this also ended up being cancelled by virtue of the lockdown that was announced the night before. All in my birthday was a bit of a tough day – I cried a lot and then painted an enormous rainbow on our front room window – or at least made a start on it – it was Saturday before I finally finished it!
Although Dave was meant to be out at work several days this week he actually only ended up in the office on Wednesday so he was home at the dining table with us for much of the week – or upstairs taking video calls.
Thursday was a bit of a write off thanks to the arrival of Poppy – who can concentrate on their school work with a new puppy in the house?
Throughout the course of the week I realised that whilst the kids were working, I wasn’t going to achieve much myself. Ben was able to plough on with his tasks independently for the most part but the girls needed more support with their work – mostly just with the technicalities of completing tasks online and submitting them. This meant every time I tried to do something myself, my attention was pulled away. By the end of the week I accepted that rather than trying to work, I was better off pottering around tidying the kitchen or doing laundry so I was still being productive but could help them as they needed it. I’m then sitting down to try and work a bit myself later on when they’d finished. Hopefully this realisation will allow me to feel a bit more relaxed with it all next week!
Over the coming week, things should be more settled – there’s no birthday skiving or puppy arrivals to contend with and I’ve accepted that I can’t work while the kids are doing their school work. Hopefully we should be able to be find our groove a bit more.
The kids are mostly coping well – skyping their friends and chatting over Xbox Live but they are definitely struggling with the fact we can only take them out for a walk once a day and the idea of having to stay 2m away from anyone (we’ve told them to imagine Dave lying down on the floor in front of them!). Chloe and Ben seem to be pretty chilled about it all for the most part but Amy is definitely super emotional and getting upset about really silly things like not being able to find a shoe. All three of them could do with a good few hours of fresh air and freedom to burn off some energy!
I’m finding the lack of social interaction hard – I’m sad that people can’t come and visit Poppy (and also a bit bothered that she can’t have her vaccinations). I keep having moments where I forget and think, “Oh tomorrow it would be nice to . . . ” and then realising that we can’t go to Heaton Park / the beach / out for lunch / see my parents.
So we’ve survived our first week of school closures / lockdown – it was fine, but I don’t want to think about the long term. I don’t want to know how long we’ve got to do this for!
We’ve found the same with school work. N has mathletics warm up, x tables grid and maths worksheets which he can whizz through. But he has reading comprehension and another english activity a day (with then a spellings task and reading). in school they’d only usually do comprehension or an english written activity – they’d have an hour for it. And usually would plan one day, then write the next. But he’s only got 30 mins to plan/then another 30 mins to write if he wants to get everything done. He’s the only one but gets so distracted, and I’m having to work as normal too. Some days he does everything, other days he does only one English thing depending on how focused he is. He’s not a fan of english at the best of times but I struggle to get him to work at a standard he should be doing without the teacher there. We’re not getting any input or contact with the teacher although we can ring or email if needed. I’m debating getting N to submit his work to make him realise he needs to work at his normal standard, not slapdash just to get it done, even if the teacher isn’t actually marketing it. Might give him a kick up the backside. But tbh, I’d just like to get him reading more, but 10 mins is all I can get, and that he moans if he has to read out loud to me. Sigh.
Was hoping he’d have time to also do some more fun education things looking at new things online, or doing some music stuff he likes, but there’s just no more time once he’s had a break, lunch and play outside.