@darynsimon I’m a teacher. My 9 year old couldn’t cope with home schooling. But she has learnt to articulate her crippling anxiety, manage panic attacks and started to love things again that had frightened her.

@LauraJWiles That’s far more important. Hope you are both well.

@darynsimon And being safe and mentally well in a pandemic is more important than both of those anyway.

@darynsimon My children have done pretty much no school work but we have read together daily, learned to draw, baked, cooked, grown plants, done puzzles, built worlds on minecraft, talked about a huge variety of subjects, exercised, walked and most importantly they are happy and calm!

@darynsimon Mine haven’t done much ‘school’ work but have done loads of life skills cub badges via @UKScouting Much more interesting for them

@darynsimon @Catinth31622775 Well said. Unfortunately the same children who are unable / unwilling to access school work from home will be the ones less likely to be given alternative learning opportunities.

@darynsimon @joe_bng I told a year 6 off for not paying attention once and they were secretly reading 'a tale of two cities' under their desk and I wanted to say, actually just ignore me and carry on.

@darynsimon Exactly!

@darynsimon Well said Daryn hope you and yours are safe and well

@darynsimon Yessssssss

@darynsimon Spoke to one of my tutees last week. Mum says she’s done very little school work. Mum works in an old people home with high incidence of COVID. Has been coming home showering and getting changed before seeing her kids. Anxiety and inability to settle whilst mum is at work.

@darynsimon I’ve been really impressed with the bridging work set for our Y11 - it’s making him think and learn independently. There was a lot of nagging to get him started but now he’s genuinely interested.

@darynsimon Most of the teachers and academics I know are not getting wound up or winding their children up about the school work set

@darynsimon This is so important and it worries me hugely that so many dont seem to realise this

@darynsimon @abbyaug Couldn’t agree more, and I was a teacher for 30 years.

@darynsimon Always

@darynsimon Yes I agree. I think the Curriculum is not really all the education a child needs!

@darynsimon 100% Far too many stressed kids and parents - school missed so far is less than 50 days, from a period of 13 years! We need perspective - so much more to learn than standard curriculum.

@darynsimon @abbyaug I needed to read this - thank you. No matter how much I mostly feel like our approach is right for us, and recognise all the learning my children are doing (very occasional school work, but mostly other things) the doubts keep coming with each conversation and thing I read.

@darynsimon exactly, not all learning is done in the classroom! many children will have learnt life skills and spent time with their family that, in a busy normal working life, they may not have had