Homeschooling during lockdown
With schools closing, many parents are homeschooling their children. This may be more challenging if your child has Special Educational Needs (SEN). But there's online support and a range of educational and fun activities to help you through this difficult time.
If your child has an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), they may still be able to go to school.
Find out what support your child's school can give you
Schools should provide guidance and support in home learning tasks for your child. They should tell you what your child needs to learn to continue their education. If they have not, ask them for help or contact your local authority's education department for support.
If your child gets SEN support or has an EHCP, the school and local authority still have a duty to support your child even if they are staying home. Talk to your child’s school about what they can continue to provide at home, such as support sessions with a specialist teacher over video.
If you’re not getting support from the school, complain to your local authority. They should help make sure your child gets the provision in their EHCP or a reasonable alternative while they are at home.
Avoid comparing yourself to others
Every family and every child is different. Some families can commit a lot of time to their child's learning, while others are balancing working from home and children with varying needs. Try not to compare yourself with other families.
You are not expected to provide the full curriculum to your child. All children will learn at different levels during lockdown. The most important thing is keeping your family happy and healthy.
Motivation and routine
There are a few ways you can help your child with motivation and encourage positive learning.
Helping your child with motivation and confidence
It can also help to create a homeschooling schedule or routine. Within your schedule, you may find it useful to give your child a choice of 2 educational activities. This helps them to feel they have a choice.
For example:
"What would you like to do? We could draw a picture of a rainbow for the window or we could do a science quiz."
Resources and activities
There are plenty of online resources, from teaching packs and activities to apps and online games. We've tried to collect together a range of activities to suit children with different abilities and needs. There are many more online and you'll know best the type of activities that suit your child.
Homeschool resources for children with SEND
There are some resources that could be particularly helpful for children with SEND:
- SEND Home Learning Resource Pack (Twinkl)
- Sensory stuck at home Facebook group for parents to share ideas and tips
- 150 sensory learning ideas (Special Education and Inclusive Learning)
- GoNoodle games and videos for learning, being active and mindfulness
- Scope's Mindful Monsters activity cards
You could also look at advice on managing behaviour and new routines:
- Advice during school closures pdf (The Challenging Behaviour Foundation)
- Supporting children with learning difficulties during coronavirus pdf (The Challenging Behaviour Foundation)
Home education website lists
- online education resources for home learning (GOV.UK)
- home education websites (Education Otherwise)
- general education sites (Education Otherwise)
- teaching resources (Education Otherwise)
Education packs and resources
- Super movers active learning (BBC)
- BBC bitesize
- Khan Academy
- Teacher's pet free home learning resource packs
- Free Landy and Friends Teaching Resources
- Learning at home for children aged 2 to 4 during coronavirus (GOV.UK)
Fun things that inspire learning
- Education Quizzes
- NASA at home for families
- Dyson engineering challenge cards, including balloon car races, spaghetti bridges and cardboard boats
- Football inspired educational challenges (Premier League Primary Stars)
- 100 things to do indoors (School of spread the happiness)
- Sensory activities (Learning4Kids)
- Flow Free puzzles app
Educational listening and watching
- Audible free subscription for kids while schools are closed
- 25 best podcasts for kids (commonsensemedia.org)
- Noodle Loaf is a musical-themed podcast that is also all about teaching kids about science
- Circle Round adapts folktales from around the world into sound and music radio plays for ages 4 to 10, exploring themes like kindness, persistence and generosity
- YouTube Kids gives you more control over content while finding educational videos for your child to watch freely
- Online stage shows and pantomimes (What's on stage)
Educational apps
- Duolingo for languages
- Photomath explains how to answer maths questions or solve an equation
- Kahoot offers easy-to-use learning games for study at home and a new self-study section
- Star Walk app for learning about stars and planets, use the device at night to see constellations for a fun activity with your kids
- SoloLearn makes learning to code a game
Online games
Some websites are organised by American school system but you can easily search online for the UK equivalent age groups. You could try:
- Cbeebies online games
- educational games for kids (education.com)
- Funbrain educational games
- Poptropica
- Arcademics combines arcade games and academic learning with free multiplayer educational games
Virtual tours and online exhibitions from around the world
- 20 day trips with activities and resources (Adventures in familyhood)
- Best virtual travel experiences (Independent), from museums to national parks
- Museum of earth online exhibit
- Van Gogh museum at home with activities and lessons for children and 4K video tour (YouTube)
- Natural History virtual museum
- 'Harry Potter: A History of Magic' British Library exhibition
You could create some activity sheets about what you see or learn about each place or exhibition.
Exercise and physical activities
Homeschooling and your mental health
Looking after your own mental health is important. If you can, avoid setting yourself unrealistic expectations.
All homeschooling parents will be worrying about how they're teaching and how their child is doing compared to other kids. Adding more stress and anxiety around schooling will not help. Remember that you are an expert on your child and any time spent at home can be a positive educational experience.
Think about things you can do with your children that you may also find relaxing and therapeutic. This could be:
- baking a cake
- drawing or painting a picture
- learning a new craft, like crochet or knitting (Crafts Council)
- listening to audiobooks together
- playing board games
- meditating together
Learning does not have to be structured academic lessons. When you walk outside and see the seasons changing, this can lead onto biology, nature and the weather. While baking a cake, you could talk about how heat changes ingredients from solids to liquids or you could practise maths skills with weighing and measuring.
Children also learn a lot of valuable skills through play. You can focus on things like how you are working as a team or how creative they are becoming.
Write down at the end of each day something you have achieved as a family.
Coronavirus mental health and wellbeing toolkit (Mentally Healthy Schools)
Balancing work with homeschooling
It can be hard to give your child attention 100% of the time while you're working. Speak to your employer about flexible working and other options to help you homeschool and work.
You can also use some techniques to manage interruptions, such as creating a timetable with things like:
- quality time
- scheduled breaks
- deciding who is on 'parent duty' if you live with your partner
- screen time, using both educational and recreational games or TV shows
Speak to other parents for help
Talking to other parents about resources, support or techniques that they're using or found worked well can be helpful. You could:
- ask questions in the parents and carers group of Scope's online community
- go to the Special Needs Jungle website for parent-led information and advice on distance education resources for children with SEND
- visit Mumsnet to chat to parents online
- contact charities specific to your child's needs
- look for local online groups or pages for parents of children with special educational needs
Many local authorities have parent carer forums that work with the council to make sure that local services meet the needs of disabled children and their families. Ask your local authority if there is a parent carer forum in your area.
Last reviewed by Scope on: 20/04/2020
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