Unfortunately, some families are facing struggles due to schooling at home. During the previous lockdowns last year, 87% of UK parents had home schooled at least one child in their household because of the pandemic, according to the Office of National Statistics.
Parents of children aged five to ten years spent around ten hours per week home schooling. This increased to 16 hours a week for parents of children aged 11 to 15 years. However, 52% of parents said it was a struggle, for various reasons.
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Main challenges for parents
The most common reason was a lack of motivation among the children, with 77% of parents saying this was a problem. The second most common reason was a feeling among parents that they didn't have enough guidance and support, with 43% saying this was hampering their children's education. Regardless of the age, or number of children in the family, the figures were similar.
Parents who were working themselves struggled with time management, as only 74% of them were helping to teach their children on a regular basis. This compared with 86% of parents who weren't working.
The parents' own level of education also made a difference: 83% of parents with a degree had been homes schooling regularly, compared with only 62% of parents who didn't have any formal qualifications. Only 49% of parents said they felt confident in their own abilities to educate their children.
Children's problems
While parents are struggling due to a lack of time and insufficient guidance, children have their own set of problems. A report by the BBC has described how the pandemic has highlighted the "digital inequalities" of life in Britain.
Some pupils have gone from having access to sufficient computers and other technology at school to sharing one or two home computers with parents and other siblings. Almost 10% of pupils said a lack of devices at home had impacted their education, according to the ONS.
Almost 20% of children said there wasn't a quiet room at home where they could concentrate properly when doing schoolwork, while 33% said their parents' time was limited. Other studies reported how children felt their parents were "getting confused" when organising lessons and were having to take many breaks to figure it out.
While home schooling can lead to frayed nerves for parents and a lack of motivation for children, it's especially important to keep a good relationship with your kids during these tough times.
Support for parents
Home schooling is particularly challenging because there are so many things that parents need to understand themselves. The main academic subjects are mathematics and English, but others include science and the arts.
The best way to tackle the curriculum is to draw up an action plan and keep your resources organised, not only for your own sake but for your children.
First, make sure you have enough paper, pens and other stationery and choose a quiet place as your home classroom. Then, create a schedule for the week ahead that fits in around other commitments, such as work, leaving a set period to focus on teaching your kids all the right stuff.
Parents and carers can get support with online and practical learning resources from various sources such as the local authority, schools and online: schools can put work online through Google Classroom, although this is mainly for secondary school students.
Some schools are suggesting pupils follow their existing timetables from home and are hosting some active lessons, via Google Hangouts and virtual classrooms. There are also passive lessons, when pupils work independently. The schools have various systems enabling pupils to submit work and have it marked.
ParentKind and Oak National Academy have published lists of free online resources, collated by teachers: BrainPop publishes animated videos on topics for English, maths and science and sites such as MathsWatch cater for pupils from Year 4 to A-level.
BBC Bitesize provides educational content divided into subjects and age categories on weekdays. The BBC shows curriculum content daily on television from Monday to Friday - including primary-school programmes, BBC Live Lessons and BBC Bitesize Daily, from 9 am to noon, on CBBC. The government is largely expecting schools to deliver their own online learning.
Art and crafts
While the academic subjects are important, other subjects such as cooking, arts and crafts and sports can be more fun. They also provide a break from the classroom, which can feel stressful at home.
Websites such as Creative Bug provide craft lessons, on everything from drawing and origami to knitting and jewellery-making. YouTube's Free School shows videos on many educational subjects, as diverse as coral reefs and the solar system.
The Gov.uk website offers plenty of information on home schooling, including links where parents and carers can get help and support.
The general advice is to try and structure the lessons at home in a similar way to how they would be at school. For example, even a one-hour lesson at school is broken down into segments to make it more interesting. Teachers advise doing a little on various topics every day, rather than drilling children on one subject for a whole morning.
Like the regular day in school, establishing a routine is important. Above all, get organised, draw up a schedule and don't lapse into feeling overwhelmed.