school council

education committee - linking parents and teachers during home-schooling

In our last article I outlined that it was a well-known fact the best educational outcomes for children come from strong links between committed educators, engaged parents and valued children. What an understatement that comment has turned out to be, given the paradigm shift we have all experienced to our lives over the past ten weeks. 

Parents have had the chance to become uniquely immersed in our children’s educations, involved in deciding which parts of the curriculum to focus on and learning where our children’s strengths (and weaknesses) truly are. Even for parents who have always been engaged in their children’s learning there were some shocks to the system in balancing homelife which now included work and school. Parents who have not previously had the luxury of getting really involved in their kids schooling faced an even greater learning curve. At times home-schooling, while working, felt a little like juggling spiky, burning torches while standing on an out of control skateboard towards a pit filled with cactus. 

While the Education Department sets the overall rules regarding home-schooling and the return to school guidelines they have left detailed policy work up to individual schools. This has meant school leadership teams have been trying to address many requirements for which there is no precedent. School Council committees such as Curriculum, Well-being, and Buildings and Grounds have tried to help where they can. Parents have been eager to put their professional expertise to use helping the school.

Both Education Committees spent many hours working through the complexities of setting a video conferencing policy. It initially seemed a simple request, with a general feeling “let’s just get on with it”. However deeper discussion illustrated the complexities which the policy had to address. Inviting teachers and all their classmates to have a direct window into a student’s home raised issues of equity, access to devices and internet, parental supervision, parental work hour requirements and being sensitive to avoiding potential embarrassment regarding their surroundings. 

The other issue discussed at length within Education Committee was the need to find ways to help parents and teachers truly understand and communicate the impact, both positive and negative, home schooling has had on our children’s education. There is much to learn, for both parents and teachers, about how children have thrived in some ways and struggled in others. 

The committee discussed the need to put some structure around the Term 2 parent teacher interviews to help ensure a thorough handover occurred. A survey is attached to Wendy’s report and the Committee strongly encourage parents to share the insights they have gained about their children. The more we can communicate our insights with teachers the better the school can help ensure a positive transition back to school.

Some children have loved the slower pace, the ability to spend hours on a favourite subject, expanding music, environmental science and art into things they can do with their parents at home. Some have missed their classmates but thrived in a quieter learning environment. Others have railed against parents imposing strict daily routines. Parents have then come up with creative ways of engaging their children and keeping them on task. For parents who also have teenagers we have seen the benefits of extra hours of morning sleep, no morning rush and the opportunity for them to eat frequently/constantly. Hopefully a return to school will see a slight reduction in the food bills. Good luck to you all during this final week.

Author: Tanya Pittard, School Council parent member of Education Committee