WITH schools across Britain closed until further notice, homeschooling is a daily reality for most parents.
But mums and dads seem divided on how the kids should spend the time off school, with stars like Peter Andre and Susanna Reid saying it's unfair to force them to work.
But mum Helen Esposito, 43, from Peterborough, has embraced homeschooling – with military-style levels of planning and routine.
She’s calling her educational bootcamp the “School of Mum” and says her three children, Leo, 11 and twins Florence and Orlando, six, are loving her strict timetable.
Speaking to Fabulous, Helen reveals all…
Up until two weeks ago, like most other mums in the country, I’d never done any teaching at all – beyond helping my kids with a bit of reading and writing practice.
Now I’ve set up my own “School of Mum”, to help my three little ones get through the next weeks of homeschooling.
I find life is easier with routine. When I was in full-time work as a National Marketing Manager for the Department of Business, I was always drawing up systems and everything was very structured.
Now I work from home as a copywriter, I’ll give myself a plan for the day. If you have a lot to get through, you need to be quite strict with yourself.
I sound like I’m really regimented with everything – I am actually really laid-back, but I think if you need to get something done, just do it in the easiest way possible.
Even before this, I had a huge blackboard with an eight-week planner that has everything on it that we need to remember. The kids like it because they can see what’s coming up.
I didn’t want them to feel like they were on holiday, as it would have been hard to rein it back in
As soon as they said schools were closing – Leo is in Year Six and the twins in Year One – I sat down and wrote my School of Mum schedule. I wanted to make it sound fun, and to start with structure.
I didn’t want them to feel like they were on holiday, as it would have been hard to rein it back in. I’m a real list writer and I think kids need to know what’s happening next.
The next few weeks and months aren’t going to be easy, but we’re going to have to accept the fact getting our kids to knuckle down is our responsibility.
On a normal “school day” now, we’re all up, dressed and fed at 9am.
I leave the twins’ clothes out the night before, so they get up and they get dressed straightaway.
If they have a couple of hours lazing around in pyjamas, I always find it’s hard to then stop and get everybody dressed.
I first wrote a timetable with school starting at 9am prompt – but that changed to incorporate Joe Wicks until 9.30am, which everyone loves.
We’re going to have to accept the fact getting our kids to knuckle down is our responsibility
Then we have an hour of schoolwork, with all three of us sitting at the kitchen table.
We start our day by writing down three good things, and they draw a picture of them.
It’s good handwriting practice for the kids, and it’s also about staying positive.
My eldest gets sent an email from school with all his work on every day, so he settles down and starts on his activities which might be English, Maths or topic work.
I’ve tried to structure the days so that we have an hour in the morning, then a snack break, and then we have another hour or so after that.
I make sure they do the things they struggle with first, before they start flagging.
I’ll do activities with Florence and Orlando – either a worksheet or something I’ve seen online.
We did a counting activity about tens and ones and how you make up the bigger number, using teaspoons as tens and chocolate drops as ones, which they then get to eat – there’s loads of stuff in the house you can use for inspiration!
It’s been a steep learning curve – I discovered the twins love me to mark their work, with smiley faces or gold stars.
We have a lot of those foil-wrapped chocolate eggs so if they are floundering, I’ll give them an egg each.
My oldest is incentivised by the fact he can finish earlier if he can gets through it all.
One day he didn’t get all his work done and had way too much to do the next – so we both agreed “Never again!”
So now he knows if he gets it all done and there’s no backlog, he gets more free time in the afternoon.
My oldest is incentivised by the fact he can finish earlier if he can gets through it all
We also make sure we have some time for life skills, like making bacon sandwiches or a cup of tea.
I’ve got another list, with things like cooking on a fire, or making a wildlife home in the garden, and one day they did their own treasure hunt.
I’ll bring those fun things in in the afternoon and get all the harder work done in the morning. It’s a balance between school work and creative play.
They have a PlayStation and a tablet each, but I’ve always been quite strict about screentime.
They don’t go on them in the morning before school – instead the boys are obsessed with Lego and Florence might do crafty things.
But it’s nice to give them half an hour after lunch when they’ve worked hard all morning, and some before dinner.
I’m really lucky in that my kids don’t squabble, but they have moments when they just get sillier and sillier.
My husband Chinzi, 46, is a self-employed roofer so he’s around at the moment, so I can split the twins up and he’ll take one.
It’s not a punishment to go to Dad – sometimes I just need to put a bit of distance between them.
Helen's homeschooling tips
Create a visible schedule for the day
Lay younger kids’ clothes out the night before
Get children up and dressed early – so they don't spend all day in PJs
Use different spaces around your flat or house to break up boredom
Mark their work and make sure they get rewards for hard work
Make weekends different – stay in pyjamas and have a late breakfast
Go online for inspiration if you’re running out of ideas
FaceTime family members if the kids are playing up
Don’t be afraid to share homeschool issues on your WhatsApp groups
Make learning fun with household items
The most important thing is not to put too much pressure on yourself and the kids.
In the beginning, teachers were saying, “You are going to be educating your children”.
Now the message has changed and they’re saying, “Do as much as you can”.
If something’s not working, knock it on the head and come back to it later.
When the Easter holidays start, we’ll relax and have fun – but we'll make sure there’s a clear date for when school starts again.
We may never get this time again when everything stops and goes really quiet – and you have lots of time with your family without the pressure of rushing around.
I’m trying to put all the work I do with my kids into a scrapbook.
It will be nice to have a diary of this strange time when they did all their work at home, and I think they’ll remember it forever.
If you're struggling with homeschooling, Helen's happy to share her tips. You can follow her on Instagram here.
A mum-of-seven recently shared the homeschooling regime she’s been doing for years – and says 1-3 hours of study is more than enough.
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