Are Dads going to pull their weight when it comes to home schooling in lockdown?
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It turned out that mothers were picking up almost all the home teaching burden during the first lockdown, with just 11.8 percent of fathers taking the lead on helping their children keep up to speed.
That was the shock finding from a survey of hundreds of parents of primary school-aged children carried out by resources and lesson plan experts PlanBee.
PlanBee’s Oli Ryan, a former primary school teacher, said: "We know that not all families are able or willing to help their children with home learning, but we were amazed to find that there was such a huge gender disparity in terms of who was taking up the teaching mantle.
"The vast majority of primary school workforce are women, but we still find it surprising that when it comes to home teaching Dads appear to be doing so little.
"If it’s a sign that teaching young children is considered to be 'women’s work', it’s pretty alarming."
Parents – the vast majority, women – were allocating significant parts of their day to home schooling, with over a quarter spending more than four hours a day on it.
Now many parents are reporting that because schools have had time to prepare their home schooling lessons the quality is much improved.
Last March, an extremely limited number of subjects were being sent to pupils at home by their schools.
Nearly all respondents said they had received work in maths (93.04 percent) and English (92.17 percent), with science in third place at just 38.26 percent.
Fitting in home schooling with other work and other commitments was the top challenge for parents, with over a third citing it.
Keeping their children engaged with learning was second biggest bugbear, at 31.09 percent, and just 10.92 percent said they were loving home-schooling their children!
Nearly 40 percent of the respondents were primary school teachers as well as parents.
Home-schooling was having a big impact on parents’ perception of teaching, with 33.6 percent saying it had altered their attitude.
Parents have now deluged schools inspectorate Ofsted with emails and Tweets praising teachers and school staff for their work during the pandemic citing how quickly schools had set up work on short notice following the last-minute lockdown.
A teacher-parent also shared that home-schooling was quite different from work, and said: "I am a teacher but it’s different when trying to teach your own!"
Commenting Mr Ryan said: "It’s great that so many parents are showing their appreciation for teachers by writing to Ofsted.
"As to whether Dads will do their fair share of home schooling remains to be seen - I won’t hold my breath!"
