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Well who could of predicted that we would be hit by a pandemic and made to stay at home. 2020 will certainly be going down in history for this and the effects it has had across the world.
The changes that have affected parents everywhere, is the closure of schools. We often were told over the lockdown that we were "lucky" because we home schooled, so things didn't change for us. In some respects this was true, we already had programmes set up online for learning, there was already an element of structure for learning in our home environment and we had lots of resources in our home. In this respect we were ahead of the game. On the flip side we had lost our favourite way of learning....exploring the world around us and being free. One of the benefits to educating at home is going to the quiet parks (because everyone is at school) , visiting museums, attending meet ups, exploring new places etc. Suddenly one of our biggest resources for learning was gone.
We were stuck at home like everyone eles. On top of this we still had to do our jobs without the support of grandparents for childcare.
From this we discovered that as a family we work well together. Me and my husband tagged teamed work and childcare and my eldest was put on furlough, which was a God send. She was able to help us with childcare and brought a new young brain to our home learning. We made the most of our 1 exercise a day by getting on our bikes and discovering the immediate area around us. It's amazing how many places are on our doorstep that we had never even been to. We are extremely lucky to live where we do and are surrounded by lovely places. We discovered tiktok. This was great fun to do as a family and we made many videos. We also found new ways of meeting up with friends and family by doing zoom quizzes. This gave us all a chance to get creative and we had some very unique quiz rounds.
There was one big discovery we made during lockdown.
Two years ago when we decided to home educate Violet we talked about our younger son joining her at home. At the time we felt he was well supported and learning well at school. There was no need to change anything for him. He wasn't completely happy at school but we felt, with his additional needs, that was the best place for him.
When schools closed in March we suddenly had our boy at home learning. He was thriving from the 1-2-1 we were giving him, even if it was just 20 minutes a day. He started asking us lots of questions about the world and we got to see how he learns and where he was in his learning.
Dawson loved being taught at home and didn't want to go back to school. He has now joined Violet and, with the support from the family around us, he is excited to not be going back to school.
We are not the only parents to do this, since the start of lock down the increase in home educators is huge.
2020 will be remembered in different ways by different people. Some people have unfortunately lost people to this awful virus, some people have really struggled with being isolated and keyworkers have had to do their jobs in very unpredictable times. For us it's the year that brought us closer as a family, made us appreciate the time we have together, reminded us to slow down and not run at 100mph all the time and, most of all, the year Dawson started home educating.
To all parents out there that have survived lockdown whilst trying to teach at home, 'well done'. No matter whether you done 2 hours, 10 minutes or no sit learning, your children would of still learnt over the past few months. You have kept them protected, safe and happy. Life is a lesson and I reckon all kids will look back on 2020 and remember it as the summer they had lots time with their family and no school.
