Returning to school: The challenges and benefits – A conversation with Sarah Loader, Literacy Consultant

Rebecca Durose-Croft and Sarah Loader continue their conversation from episode 2, discussing some of the challenges and the benefits of returning to school, for children, parents, and educators.

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Transcript

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 0:01

Hi, and welcome to Westchester Words, UK and international. I'm Rebecca Durose-Croft, content and services director at Westchester education services. So most schools, in particular in the UK have gone back now on and off from March. And having spent a bit of time talking and thinking about the challenges and benefits of lockdown, we're gonna talk today with literacy consultant, Sarah Loader, about some of the challenges and benefits of going back to school. So Sarah, were there really any challenges with going back?

Sarah Loader: 0:29

I think there probably were, yes. And while we're used to talking about what was so hard about being in lockdown and attempting to homeschool, there were definitely some trials with sending our children back. I guess a bit of that was to do with anxiety and relinquishing control, but also probably picking up the relationship we had with school and teachers where we left it, when that had become so altered. That shift was for many of us quite disorientating and destabilizing.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 0:59

Yeah. I bet it's just the other way around isn't it? It was really confusing in the beginning and then we all got used to it and then suddenly it was back to normal again. Absolutely. Okay. So let's pick apart those issues then, uh, starting with the anxiety you mentioned, what were parents most anxious about?

Sarah Loader: 1:13

I think there was a lot of anxiety from a health perspective. Understandably. Yeah. Um, having cocooned ourselves within our immediate families. For, for many parents, sending children back to school, felt like a pretty big risk and as such quite frightening and unpredictable, especially in the context of so much of normal life not having yet resumed. I also think that school was for most, different. There were new systems and bubbles place. Some schools did things like staggered starts. Others did convoluted one-way systems. So even the school run a benchmark of our normal weekdays had changed. And there was anxiety amongst the children themselves, um, whether that was about health, which it was for some or fitting back into friendship groups in the classroom dynamic, but also, you know, worrying about the work, whether it would be harder, unmanageable, too much, how different it would be from that homeschooling experience. I think on the whole people, especially children actually adjust pretty well to change. Yeah. And the positives of schools going back far outweighed those negatives of, but it's important to acknowledge them nonetheless, and to be aware of them and to understand that for some, parents and children, those anxieties persist. And I don't think any of this was helped by the stop start nature of bubbles being sent home and kind of intermittent bouts of homeschooling, which was then thrown into the mix.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 2:42

Yeah. And it was just so confusing for them, wasn't it? You know, the rules changed day to day for them. They still couldn't travel to see family or have grandparents to stay, but they could go to school. So those tricky concepts were, were quite difficult for them to get their heads around. Yeah.

Sarah Loader: 2:55

Yeah, not just children. No, not just, I think lots of people struggled actually more, I would say with the changing yes. Of the rules and the kind of fluid nature of those rules than they did with full, full on lockdown. Making sense of that. And constantly having to adjust our behavior was, was difficult for adults too.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 3:13

Yeah, absolutely. So what about that relinquishing control then? Can you delve into that a bit more?

Sarah Loader: 3:18

Yeah, I think for most people, school is a given. It's not a part of life that we question, we do it willingly and happily. We don't particularly interfere with it. We get glimpses of information or insight from our children, if we're lucky. Um, I have very limited access to any information from my son, but you know, his friends tell me things and we, get something from parent consultations, we get homework that comes home and letters that come home and, you know, you find out about achievements or discipline. And for most of us, that's kind of enough. That's all we really need. We don't need a deep understanding of the curriculum, the assessment criteria, the teaching pedagogy. We just, we leave that to the school, and we do that happily. It's their responsibility to teach our children. And yeah, many of us want to support that from the sidelines, but we're definitely not in the most part, you know, full on, on the pitch and in lockdown that changed. And suddenly we were thrown into a situation where it was our concern, our responsibility and parents needed ideally, some knowledge of maths concepts of phonics, grammatical terminology. They needed to know the best way to help their children absorb difficult ideas and concepts and, and to develop new strategies, which could help them to learn. So it was hard. And I think for many parents the respect and gratitude, they felt towards school and teachers soared. Yeah. But lots tried with varying success. I would say to embrace that challenge, which meant that when schools did go back, it was difficult to just hand over that control in its entirety. Um, I mean, of course for some that was a very welcome transition. But for others. It, it was harder. Definitely.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 5:03

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it, because we talked so much about how hard homeschooling was, which it was, um, that it's, it's easy to think parents were just swinging from the rafters about sending their kids back, but this offers a completely alternative perspective to that.

Sarah Loader: 5:15

Yeah. And I mean that, of course there were parents, lots who were swinging from the rafters or jogging to the school gates, but there were others who will have been feeling a bit, you know, a bit of trepidation and, and many, I think, who were feeling a combination of those things, starkly opposed as they are. A bit of relief and joy, a bit of confusion about who was holding the baton of education at that moment. And I think that sort of combination in itself was quite difficult to manage.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 5:43

Okay. So the last thing you mentioned was about that shift on our relationship with school. So what did that change for parents and, and what was the impact of it?

Sarah Loader: 5:51

I think that this point sort of ties together the other two factors. It's about being able to hand that baton over back to where it belongs and to feel okay with taking a step back. Slipping back into that attitude I mentioned at the beginning of treating school as a given was not seamless, not least because there was so much uncertainty surrounding the reopening and the continued opening of schools. So something that had once felt so secure and solid, felt a little bit shaky and that in itself is really unnerving and unsettling. But also having taken on a role as a teacher parent, most parents had to shift back to, you know, plain old parent where you're desperately trying to get information out of your child on the way home, scanning emails and newsletters to find out what the plans and activities are, and the topics. Flicking through exercise books to see evidence of work or how well they did in a test. And it was a bit like being included into something that don't, you know, don't get me wrong. That was totally unexpected and challenging only to be excluded again, uh, sort of shut out and, and looking in through a window and to a large extent, it's about trust and being able to force ourselves back into the role of parent where we don't need to know everything that happens at school. We need to trust the school to be doing what they do well. We need to be able to enjoy being able to head back to the sidelines and reclaim a supportive role, but it's okay to admit that there are things we miss about homeschooling, even though, you know, we never thought we'd say it, even if that nostalgia or nervousness about school return is inextricably linked with a giddy sense of freedom and not having to spend all day, every day with our children. I don't think the picture is black and white, and we do ourselves no favors by not putting a spotlight on the gray and talking about that from time to time.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 7:39

Yeah, that is a good point. That giddiness you mention, and those parts of school where there were, it was positive and it was beneficial to children. Can you touch on that a little bit more?

Sarah Loader: 7:46

Yes, of course. I mean, there are lots of benefits for going back to school. Obviously for parents, it frees them up to go back to their normal routines and takes away the need for multiple hat wearing. You know, holding down a job, looking after, you know, littlesse, you know, if you've got those at home as well and homeschooling. But for children, it's so important for them to get back to school. Aside from the learning side of things, which in itself is fairly critical, there's the whole social aspect, interacting with peers, again, being in a larger group setting, plus, you know, the concept of responding to and communicating with other adults who aren't parents or carers. Children learn a huge amount from being at school other than what the curriculum stipulates. They learn a lot about how to behave in settings, where they're less comfortable than they are at home. Um, in fact, speaking to teachers after the first lockdown, there was a real common theme about how much less respectful and rule abiding children had become during that first bout of, you know, following that first bout of homeschool schooling, which raises some interesting points about what school teaches our children. And I think that boundaries and rules and repercussions fall into that, which incidentally under the pressures of lockdown might have been hard for families to maintain anyway. So at the end of the day, children benefit from adult influences outside their immediate families hugely. And I think parents benefit from having some time away from their children. Yeah, I would

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 9:09

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that, Sarah. So with those positives in mind then, can we think of anything from a lockdown and the homeschooling experience, which we can take forward, which will help us as parents and with our children as well in a normal way and benefit schools?

Sarah Loader: 9:23

I hope so.<laugh>, I think we've learned a lot during lockdown for lots of parents, a bit of engagement with the curriculum and the expectations on children is no bad thing. And hopefully that will help us, you know, be better informed and involved to the right degree, uh, moving forward. As we've talked about in other episodes, um, we know more about our children's learning, not just in terms of capacity, but yes, to some degree perhaps where the gaps are, where the supports needed, but I'm actually thinking more in the sense of how they work best, what, what factors work and what don't. I hope and believe that we know them better. We're more in tune with their strengths, their weaknesses, their classroom personas their attitude to learning and their interests, which we can use to help develop more successful learning outcomes. I think we can communicate better with schools and teachers to have a more open, frank and, and informed discussion, um, about our children and how we can help them together. A, a genuinely joined up approach, which we've talked about for years with schools, and which I think now feels a bit more achievable. So there are lots of positives. Um, and we just have to try and keep hold of what we learnt, embrace the return of normality, even if it no longer feels normal and talk about it with each other, learn from each other's experiences as well. Yeah. And keep those avenues of communication open.

Rebecca Durose-Croft: 10:49

Yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. That was great. Sarah, thank you so much for that. It was really interesting and great to talk with you again.