Covid: Parents prepare for home learning

Tough new lockdown measures introduced across England mean schools are now closed to most pupils and GCSE and A-Levels have been cancelled.

This means a return to remote learning for pupils of all ages - apart from vulnerable children and the children of key workers who can continue to go into school.

As a result, parents are once again waking up to a world of home-schooling and online learning.

Tracy Ginn, from Mexborough, South Yorkshire, has a nine-year-old son at primary school and an 18-year-old son studying for a Level 3 catering qualification at college.

As a Royal Mail employee she's classed as a key worker but said she would not be applying for her youngest son, Oliver, to go back to the classroom.

"As a key worker I can technically send him to school but I chose not to as I would rather not put him at risk," she said.

"I do think school is really important, not just for his education but for the social side as well, and it's a really difficult decision but I don't want him to get Covid.

"I work full time and I'm in contact with lots of people and touching thousands of letters every night and my eldest works in a shop at the weekend.

"But the only one of us who has had to isolate was Oliver after one of his teachers had it.

"So from my experience the place that has most risk is his school."

She said she would juggle her night shifts with Oliver's education, saying: "We've done it before, we'll do it again".

But said she was worried about the lack of contact with his friends.

"I'm his mum and I can teach him as best I can but I'm not nine, I can't listen to him talk about Pokemon and Minecraft without blanking over," she said.

Sally German lives in Leeds and has two sons, aged nine and 11.

She and her husband both work full time and she said she felt "apprehensive" about once again looking after her children's education.

"It was really hard last time, we really struggled to balance work and looking after the children, let alone trying to help them with home-schooling," she said.

"I was often working till midnight trying to catch up and I really do not want to do that again.

"I actually ended up getting signed off sick with stress last year, around May time.

"I couldn't manage working full time and looking after the children and everything else that we needed to do, it was really hard.

"It's taken me until now to get myself back in a position where I feel like I can work and get on with stuff and now it's come back again."

She said her youngest son had been "really happy for about two minutes" when he learned school was closed.

"But then he realised the reality of it", she said, and her eldest son was "really disappointed" to be missing out.

Mother-of-two Rachael Smith, from Willerby, East Yorkshire, said she had been surprised by the decision to shut schools.

"I was absolutely blown away, shocked. I was not expecting it in the slightest, " she said.

"We'd even had messages from school a couple of hours before to say 'looking forward to seeing you all today'.

"We'd all got our school gear out, we'd got our uniforms out, we'd got our PE kits packed, the school bags ready.

"I had done packed lunches.

"We were ready, the kids were excited about seeing their friends and then that came through, giving us no notice whatsoever to sort out childcare."

Vicki Smith, mum to a five-year-old son and a three-month-old baby, runs the Wakefield Mumbler website, an online resource for parents.

She said she was "heartbroken" at the thought of telling her elder son he would not be going back to school after just one day back in the classroom.

But she said she felt teachers would be better prepared to meet the challenges of another lockdown.

"I think this time lockdown is going to be very different because we do have a baby to contend with as well, but I think that the way that the schools have prepared so much more this time round it is going to be easier," she said.

"We've already had packs from school this morning outlining what we're going to be doing from tomorrow onwards.

"I was expecting [the announcement] but I thought 'how am I going to tell my son after he's been at school for only one day?'. I was pretty heartbroken by that, it just felt quite cruel.

"But when we told him he was actually really excited about it and excited about learning on the computer.

"Looking after a baby is hard enough in itself and then home-schooling and a bit of work as well on the side...

"It's going to be difficult without a doubt but I keep on saying to myself that we've done it once and we got through it and we'll do it again and we'll get through it."

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