SAFE MATE!
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and cope. It’s useful if the family has the resources to use technology so that the kids are not doing absolutely nothing in terms of mental stimulation, but people need perspective.”
But what about taking the plunge and deciding to home-school completely? As to which children would benefit from this, Ancer says it’s very much about the individual. “In the past if you struggled at school you just fell by the wayside. There’s a lot more recognition that the traditional schooling model isn’t for everyone. There are children who just struggle in very big environments, who need one-on-one attention because of learning difficulties, or socially or emotionally they would do better elsewhere. It depends on the nature and needs of the child.
“What I’ve seen is children who struggle in a large environment can benefit from the intimacy and individual attention of homeschooling.”
But she notes clear disadvantages such as little or no exposure to sports participation and fewer options in terms of different types of friends.
“It’s always important if a child is unhappy to get to the root of it. Sometimes they might be unhappy wherever they are. I don’t believe in keeping children in environments where they’re not happy, but sometimes the child can take the problem wherever they go.”
It might come as a surprise to those who cannot wait to see their offspring back through the school gates, but home-schooling is among the fastest-growing types of education formats worldwide. According to the 2011 census, about 57,000 kids in SA were being homeschooled. By 2017 estimates were 100,000. In the US, more than 2-million kids are learning at home.
Capetonian
Clare de Beer went the homeschooling route about a year ago for her five
From the colleague whose kids scream through Zoom meetings to the one who’s shattered and grumpy because they’ve had to work late into the night to get projects done and help with high school algebra, working from home with children isn’t for sissies. But it’s also a real trial for businesses in terms of productivity and keeping projects on track.
Nikki Bush, a human potential and parenting expert who works with businesses and schools, says one of the biggest risks to businesses in terms of productivity is the adjustment of having a large number of employees working from home. “This all happened overnight without a dress rehearsal. Everyone will get good at this new way of working, but they are not there yet. Both management and employees need to adjust their expectations and reinvent the working day to accommodate families in different stages of lockdown or rephasing in,” she children. The three younger ones are using virtual school Teneo, and she’s using Footprints on Our Land for her high schoolers, which she says includes a “beautifully set out course, including language, history and art”. De Beer is also completing a teaching degree and runs a playschool.
Her children were at a private school in Cape Town, but they found it incredibly expensive and did not like what their children were being exposed to in the mainstream education system. There was less discipline than they wanted, classes were too large and teachers weren’t coping.
De Beer says there are pros and cons to home-schooling.
“They’re not with their friends all the time, but we are a big family and they have lots of cousins.
“It’s the best thing we ever did and now it’s even better because we’re ahead of the curve,” she says, referring to the school closures. Bouwe van der Eems works in the IT sector and runs the SA says. Her parent support programmes have supported companies and schools to create realistic expectations and practical solutions.
Businesses are grappling with ways to support this new work-from-home dynamic, and are having to come up with workable solutions. One of Bush’s telecoms clients, for instance, has created a nomeeting zone between noon and 2pm each day for employees to catch up with their families, carry out domestic responsibilities or take a break from being in front of a screen. It’s early days and murky territory, but companies are going to have to engage with this new landscape — where work and private lives are suddenly blurred — and problem-solve for employee and employer. Good communication with team members so that they feel included, a lot of empathy, checking in to see how staff are feeling and having realistic expectations about performance are solid starting points to manage this weird new world. home-school website sahomeschoolers.org. He is also chair of the Pestalozzi Trust, a legal defence fund for home and civil education. He and his wife, Debbie, home-schooled their five children.
Provisions for home education were enacted in the SA Schools Act of 1996.
According to the 2011 census, about 57,000 kids in SA were being homeschooled. By 2017 estimates were 100,000
“It was the early 2000s and we just thought it would be good for our family life to educate them at home because you spend more time with them,” Van der Eems says. Their children are now all adults, with varying careers that range from engineering to ballet teaching and watchmaking.
“Home-schooling is not for everyone; it depends on your family circumstances. You have to explore whether it will work for you. It doesn’t depend only on the parents; it also depends on the children. You may have a child who wants lots of social interaction a lot of the time, then maybe school is better.”
He says there’s no correlation between social status and the success of home education. “Qualified and unqualified can do it, rich and poor can do it. We started with a formal curriculum, a full service, and as we gained confidence we started mixing things and using subjects from this curriculum and another.”
The current estimate is that 140,000 SA children are being home-schooled, he says. That’s less than 1% of the school population.
Home education is the fastestgrowing education type globally, “even in countries where it is illegal like Sweden, Germany and Cuba”, he says.