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How can I teach my children at home?
Focussing on learning for an entire day can be a mammoth challenge for children, especially when they're at home! There are ways you can help them feel ready to learn by:
- Signalling the start of the school day.
- Using a reward chart with stickers.
- Designing ‘now and then’ cards to help them understand their timetable.
- Talking through problems if they get stuck.
- Reframing questions if they’re struggling to engage.
Video - How to teach your children at home with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor teams up with parents to give tips and advice for home education.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor:
Now suddenly, I’m supposed to be a teacher. We’re all learning new skills here, aren't we?
We’ve been looking at some tips for how to make your home feel… I suppose a more… appropriate place to do the home learning. Getting everybody pepped. Getting a successful day, a little bit of education, a few hours of something if that’s what you manage, a few minutes sometimes in our case.
Louise:
I’ll never get them to do more than two pages at a time, because if I ask for any more than that, it’s too much for them and they don’t do anything then because their brains are just thinking I’ve got all this work to do.
Owen:
I kind of try and split it into lots of little bits, so that we’re only ever really doing anything for half an hour, forty minutes at a time.
Adalaine:
If there's a subject that Isaac’s just like… you can just see he’s had enough of. Frazzled! I’ll say okay, it’s dance break! And literally I'll just pop some music on and we’ll just start dancing.
Owen:
Sometimes there are days where neither of the kids want to do their home learning. And there’ll be a moment where it’s like okay well, today we’re just not going to do it.
Louise:
We’ll let them go and have a break on the trampoline, go and have a jump around.
Owen:
We’ll put on our coats and we’ll go out. We’ll ride our bikes for an hour, and at the end of that we’ll come back and the whole mood will have changed.
Leigh:
Once you’ve let go a little bit of this idea that we have to get three pages done by the end of the day, otherwise the world’s going to end… As soon as you’ve got rid of that, you can say well actually if we just get one page done, then that’s moving forward so that’s okay.
Owen:
If they don’t finish their whole assignment, I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself about that.
Adalaine:
The rewards chart system has been something that has been an absolute game changer in motivating the children and ensuring that they really push themselves as well.
Louise:
They don’t go on their gadgets until they’ve done the structured part of the day.
Owen:
We’d say that if we get everything done this week, and it’s all finished off and everything’s going really well, then on Friday we’ll turn the front room into a massive den.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor:
For us I find keeping ourselves in a bit of a routine has actually been really helpful. But still, by no means easy. Every once in a while, I remember what we’re trying to do here and I think, this is ridiculous.
Everything you’re doing, every baby success, give yourself a pat on the back. And the days where it’s just not working and you need to cut yourself some slack, that is totally fine too.
This video was recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic. We hope the advice will remain relevant and helpful to parents educating their children at home.
Home education hacks: Learning at home
- Signal the start of the school day. You could ring a small bell or talk through the timetable with your child.
- For maintaining focus, nothing beats a good old-fashioned reward chart. You could give them stickers for each task completed or for an amount of time they spend with their head down.
- Make some 'now and then' cards to help them understand their timetable. These are cards reminding them what they're doing now and what they will be doing next - for example, now they're doing geography, but after that it's lunch!
- If they get stuck, talk to them about the problem and, together, try to get to the bottom of where they’re getting lost.
- Can you frame a question differently? Sometimes it can be difficult for a child to engage with written work, especially day after day. Maybe you could find a map online for their Geography lesson, or pictures and videos for a History lesson?
- For children who are used to learning in a classroom with others around them, often 20 or so classmates, you could try sitting them in the same room as you or their siblings. Watch and see how this affects their work.
Where can I find more support for home education and parenting?
The BBC Bitesize home education collection is designed to support you and your child’s learning at home with free resources for early years and foundation stage (EYFS), primary and secondary-age students.
Bitesize Parents’ Toolkit is the go-to place for the whole parenting community to find stories, expert advice and fun activities.
If your child has special educational needs and / or disabilities, be sure to check out the Parents’ Toolkit SEND collection.
For more information about home education, these BBC News articles cover the rise in families deciding to educate their children at home and, from 2021, the impact of Covid on home education.