Diary of a family in quarantine #3

Week three of the Advertiser’s quarantine diary with the McLure family of Smiths Beach and it’s all about home schooling. Mum Lisa, a hairdresser and personal trainer, shares what the first week of teaching her two kids, Angus, 10, in grade four at Cowes Primary and Evie, six, in grade one, has been like now husband Tim has gone back to work full-time.

“In the first week of this (quarantine diary) I was Mother Theresa: off Facebook, exercising, eating well and not drinking. That’s all out the window now. Why? Because of home schooling.

It has been a bit like one of those Laurel and Hardy movies where everything goes wrong but it’s hilarious. In the future, we’ll look back at all this and laugh. On the first day I had the kids dressed, brushed their hair, made sure their teeth were clean, sat down full of excitement. But within half an hour I was herding kittens.

I’d be helping Evie, then Angus would ask a question and I’d help him and by the time I turned back to Evie she’d be gone. Because it was all new, the first day was crazy. Everyone was in the same boat, across all schools. The poor teachers, everyone was messaging them, not knowing what to do. We have a whole new appreciation for how much work they put in.

I decided to not call them but have a nervous breakdown, very quietly, internally. By 3.30pm on the first day I was drinking a bottle of red wine. Yes, even though I’d vowed not to drink during the week.

I tried to bribe the kids, with anything, Pokemon cards, a cookie. I would have given them a puppy each to get through the day but then I realised by the end of the month I’d be broke with 75 dogs.

Then I tried just being calm, very Pinterest, going down the beach and doing maths in the sand, until I realised we got next to nothing done. I’d say after a week we’ve started to find our feet. The kids have become more self-contained. If Angus can’t find an answer he Googles it, watching a video to figure it out.

I thought home schooling was going to be a matter of sitting the kids in front of the screen with the teachers on video for the whole day. But it’s not like that. Evie communicates with her teachers via an app called Seesaw, and Angus uses the app Compass. On top of that, they use Google Classroom and Cowes Primary’s remote learning pages.

It hasn’t helped that computers to me are like trying to speak Swahili.

On the first day of school we also picked up packs from the teachers (with a staggered pickup), driving through the carpark. The packs had white boards, pencils, books, codes to access work. The teachers upload the work daily, explaining what maths or spelling is required and then we go on Google Classroom to do the activities. Every second day Angus has a half-hour classroom meeting online. If there are any problems, we can message the teacher and they get back straight away.

Most days we’re done by 1pm. Angus is very good at reminding me times for lunch and recess. I remind myself they’re in primary school and I don’t think any future employer is going to ask them their maths’ scores in 2020. I don’t think they’ll miss out on a job because of all this.

I think we put too much pressure on ourselves.

At the start of Coronavirus I thought I’d go on a diet, get super fit, the kids would learn so much. I had a picture-perfect vision of coming out of this, but in reality we just need to get through it still loving each other at the end."