FOR the Kelly family, remote learning was a team effort that brought them even closer together.
Clinical psychologist Kathy Kelly and Breast Cancer Trials human resources manager Joe Kelly were helping their workplaces transition to working from home when families were asked to keep children home from school if possible too.
The couple decided to rotate the role of 'parent on duty' or POD, to help daughters Maya and Frankie with schoolwork.
"On two of our busiest days Maya was the go-to POD," Mrs Kelly said.
"I think the girls were very resilient. We try to be pretty hands-on parents, but we couldn't be particularly hands on for those first one or two weeks."
Mr Kelly said they were lucky the girls could read and were autonomous learners.
Frankie said her favourite days were when Maya was acting as "mini Mummy", helping her and allowing her to watch television as a reward.
"I found that teaching is a really good way to learn," Maya said.
Kahibah Public has offered its families the opportunity to reflect on their efforts during COVID-19, by including their feedback on semester one report cards to be sent home on Friday.
Principal Honi Faasisila invited parents and carers last month to provide a brief comment about their child's experiences, that could cover work ethic; level of knowledge, skills and understanding; strengths; and suggestions for future development.
The Kellys said they relished feeling part of the teaching team and contributing to the reports.
"I loved that opportunity because it feels like it was a very challenging experience but a really rewarding experience to be in this together," Mrs Kelly said.
"It was an opportunity to practice a lot of gratitude, flexibility and perspective taking.
"I referred to the fact they had to go it alone a fair bit and I was proud of them for sticking with it, even on days that it was hard."
The couple wrote how much Frankie's organisational skills had improved and how Maya had "stepped up" and been flexible, autonomous and resilient.
Ms Faasisila said families had played a unique role in remote learning.
"When the Department of Education announced it could be a simplified, modified report it meant we could look at the reports a little bit differently," she said.
"I also considered that many people keep school reports as memorabilia."
Ms Faasisila said she brought the idea to the parents and citizens committee, which agreed, as long as participation was optional.
"One of the parents said 'This would be a great way as parents to have closure on a phase where we were teachers for our children'," she said.
"They felt it recognised and acknowledged they too had contributed more significantly than ever before to their child's learning."
She said around 60 per cent of families in each class contributed and as many as 89 per cent in one class.
Families of children in middle to upper grades were most willing.
"We have a high percentage of parents who are well educated professionals and I felt I was reading teacher report comments!"
Ms Faasisila said the school already had a goal of increasing the level of family engagement in learning when COVID-19 hit.
She said families had gained a deeper understanding of how their children learned, plus been able to provide teachers who had only had students in classes for six weeks with insights into what had worked at home, such as frequent movement breaks.
Ms Faasisila said teachers provided draft timetables and set tasks mostly on Google Classroom and Seesaw.
Students were asked each day to indicate how they were feeling, as part of a wellbeing check.
She said all 348 students were also asked to write a reflection for their reports.
She said many referred to where they needed to improve, which she said would be used during upcoming online parent teacher meetings to set shared learning goals.
"Some kids' comments reflected on their sleep patterns," she said.
"I was surprised it came up. Some said 'I didn't sleep as well because I was on my screen too much', or 'I learned I didn't enjoy being on computers as much as I thought I would'."
Frankie wrote about liking writing and maths tasks, while Maya wrote about how she missed discussing history with peers and enjoyed science.
The girls said they enjoyed learning at their own pace, which often meant starting and finishing tasks earlier than they would have at school and spending time together as a family, in nature and relaxing.
Maya taught herself to crochet and Frankie devoted time to coding and playing the piano.
