It’s less than a week since schools finally closed to stop the spread of coronavirus. And honestly, I don’t think I’m going to make it.
If Covid-19 doesn’t get me, then my enforced primary/secondary teacher role almost certainly will.
I’m home with two boys aged 14 and four, and by the end of three days of homeschooling I was ready to give up and let the kids stay in bed bingeing on Netflix and Haribo until this is all over.
Practically every hour, on the hour, the four-year-old demands to know “how many days has this been now?” It’s like the new version of “are we there yet?”
If he’s not doing that, he’s shouting at us to keep up with PE lessons with the brilliant Joe Wicks on YouTube. “You’re not doing the power squats properly” he bellowed the other day.
He’s asking why we can’t have lunch at 10am, or he’ll insist on using our meagre supplies to “do an experiment” to help scientists find a cure for Covid-19.
He may be bursting with energy, but at least he has energy. Which is more than I can say for the teen.
After some limited success with getting up before 9am on Monday, he now crawls begrudgingly out of bed at around 10am.
School lessons on the virtual world of Google Classroom are attempted and abandoned after about 20 minutes with wails of “I don’t understand”, “I need a snack”, “what do you mean there’s only sandwiches for lunch?”
“Look,” I told him – in an attempt to put my foot down – “while all this is going on, I’m not your mum, I’m your teacher, now crack on with your cumulative frequency work.”
His reply... “Well, you’re not my mum, you can’t tell me what to do.”
Wise guy.
I had no idea trying to keep school work on schedule while working and providing non-stop meals and snacks would be such a huge task and I’m almost ready to wave the white flag in surrender.
I’m sure I’m not alone.
If this week has been anything to go by, loads of children, especially those in secondary school, are either going to have to take the whole academic year again or exams will have to be adjusted to take in the work they’ve done at school rather than during corona quarantine.
Because, even with the best will in the world, there’s no way parents, especially those of us who are meant to work from home, can give our children anywhere near the level of support they need to get their classwork done.
In the grand scheme of things, staying at home to keep ourselves and others safe isn’t a huge ask. But it’s not as easy as it sounds.
When this is all over, not only will we owe a huge thanks to the NHS, but also to our hardworking teachers for everything they do for our children.
We’ll have come to fully realise they deserve every moment of their six-week holiday – and a huge pay rise.
