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School’s outside for summer in our learning pod
Anna White meets the parents going back to nature to ensure their children get an education
Last Friday I invited a handful of children over to the garden for a morning of learning with my seven-year-old twins. I use the term “learning” loosely.
Norman castles had been the topic of the week, as dictated by school, so we talked about the invasion of William the Conqueror.
Then, in an attempt to be engaging and because I hark from the East Midlands, we skipped 311 years to Robin Hood and made giant cardboard board games, with the Merry Men attacking Nottingham Castle – what’s a mere three centuries in a history lesson?
My teaching came a poor second to spotting newts in the pond and trampolining, and the morning soon descended into free play. I’m sure across the country, bumbling attempts at homeschooling are fast becoming the new play date this summer.
However, there are a set of ambitious parents who are pioneering more formal homeschooling pods, giving children structure and a syllabus week-in-week-out to fill the educational, developmental and social void of the lockdown.
Erika Severini is one such parent. What started as a desperate way of sharing the load, quickly evolved into a fully fledged “field school”.
“I wasn’t coping once we realised our kids weren’t going back to school until September. As I was crying into my coffee for the sixth day running, I knew something had to change,” says Severini, a cycling proficiency trainer. “When I overshared with local parents, it became clear that nobody was happy,” she adds.
With six other volunteer parents, including trainee psychotherapist Tanis Taylor, she devised the concept of an outdoor school. They wanted the kids out in the fresh air for three to four hours a day, whatever the weather, in a neutral space, with easyto-follow social distancing guidelines.
“We didn’t want the children to feel continually told off for being too close to each other, so we asked them to bring a blanket each, which marked out their work space. No one was allowed on to someone else’s blanket.”
The group of 10-year-olds – Gabriel, Merryn, Olive, Syd, Honour, Lucia, Dara, Brooklyn and Odin (mainly from the same class) – meet every morning in nearby Walthamstow Marshes after doing their maths at home.
Then they bike off to a willow dome in a nearby nature reserve and lay out their blankets, ready for school to begin.
“We listened to the children and let them shape the experience,” says Severini. “We are trying to foster a democracy and they even voted on which book to read together.” The class have just finished the graphic novel Amulet and are designing a magazine together, called Lockdown Life, to be published.
They are writing book reviews, recipes and fantasy adventures, while Odin – the class videographer – records each session. They have made bread and cupcakes in oranges, and had tennis and Spanish lessons.
The parents tap into the curriculum as set by school, but also weave in real life, some of the children have written about Black Lives Matter and a recent anti-racism march.
“I’m really enjoying field school, partly because it’s a different type of learning,” says Merryn. “And I’ve made new friends. I want to keep going.”
“Yesterday we did a 40km [25-mile] bike ride to a lake and went wild swimming,” says Severini’s son, Gabriel.
“Today we are reading together and over the past few weeks I have written a comic about a radioactive carrot.”
The arrangement also takes the pressure off the working parents. Every week, one parent from each family volunteers to take on the next week’s shifts, giving the other parents time to work. Two adults are required per shift.
On the other side of London, Hero Preston, a property consultant and mother of two, was crestfallen when it became clear that her eight-year-old son was not going back to school this term. Her main concern was for his mental health.
“At the beginning of the lockdown, I told my children that I am not a teacher, but we would get through this together,” says Preston. “However, my eldest son quickly became resistant and shut down to learning. He started spelling words incorrectly on purpose. There were other danger signs, too, that he had switched off from learning and I was worried he was becoming depressed,” she explains.
So, on the class WhatsApp group, Preston offered to take a bubble of up to 15 kids for homeschooling sessions at a quiet local park in East Sheen, while other parents looked on.
“I wanted to mimic the school bubble system, so borrowed cones to mark out social distancing and bunting to create a designated zone away from other members of the public,” she says.
On the first morning, they did spellings together, some times tables and then one of the other mums, Bianca Kellaway, who runs a birth and postnatal doula business (biancakellaway. com), took a yoga session. “They sat down beautifully and listened. They wanted to learn so much in an organised way,” Preston says. “At the end, they all looked at me as if to say, ‘Is that it?’ I realised I had to up my game.”
Preston took the class topic of Greek myths as the theme, read stories and applied the morals. Every week, a different parent would lead a session and share their expertise. “One mum is a surgeon and ran a Q&A session on Covid-19. She helped reduce their fear,” explains Preston. “We called it Science with Pippa.”
The wider community have supported Preston’s home school, too. Local deli owner Sally Powell, who runs Culver + Nelson, has been delivering fresh fruit for the children and coffee for the parents-cum-teachers.
“The new routine made a difference
‘What started as a desperate way of sharing the load quickly evolved into a field school’
to my son from day one,” says Preston. “He needed the change of scene and a sense of purpose.”
For all of these parents, mental wellbeing and social interaction were far more important that sticking to the curriculum, an approach that is given a big tick by retired headmaster Keith Panes.
“Children have an enormous capacity for learning and, as long as this break from formal education does not run on into next term, then parents should not worry too much about delivering the full school curriculum,” says Panes, who helped set up the academy schools under prime minister Tony Blair.
When it comes to homeschooling there are two main dangers, says Panes. “Firstly, unqualified parents teaching specialist subjects in the wrong way, imprinting learnings that the school will later have to unpick. Secondly, anxious parents who are overly focused on the syllabus and will put their children off learning altogether”.
On top of doing the basics such as times tables and spelling, he suggests that parents setting up a homeschooling pod and stick to what they know. “Teach the kids what you are passionate about and it will rub off.” And reading regularly is vital, he adds.
To keep up concentration, especially in an outdoor environment where nature will be vying for their attention, make sure the topics are relevant to the children’s lives. “Get them outside learning about their environment and local history,” he adds.
Socialising and working collectively is the most important lesson in this strange summer term. “Children learn from each other. They are each other’s role models and just working alongside another child helps them modify their own behaviour.”
He recommends nature rambles and ball games as activities that help social cohesion while socially distancing.
The lockdown has been an enforced period of self-discovery for parents, but perhaps schools can also learn lessons from these homeschooling pods.
As Taylor’s daughter Dara says: “We have worked really hard and we’ve made special memories learning outside this summer. Perhaps it will encourage the teachers to give us kids more freedom.”
In the meantime, a project that started out as desperate measures has turned into something hugely positive, which might continue once schools have reopened. “We are planning on keeping going as long as there is an educational shortfall,” says Taylor.
“That could mean we continue if school goes back at reduced days and we will likely continue over summer in lieu of the lost term: the kids are all super keen. We all have jobs we need to get back to but in the long run, I hope we will continue to offer it occasionally.
“I used to outsource my child’s education to school and it’s been a real, personal education to take it in-house, outdoors and do it together. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and it turns out the same is true of schooling.”