The last couple of years haven’t been easy for school-aged kids, but it’s been no walk in the park for parents either. You may have blocked it out, but it wasn’t too long ago when we were forced into juggling working from home, parenting/home duties and helping the kids navigate at-home learning. Our latest research reveals what parents really thought about home learning, and their concerns for the school year ahead.
After two years of at-home learning, most parents have developed a new-found appreciation for teachers. One parent in our study said, “It was hard enough trying to do one-on-one learning with my children, it gave me a better appreciation of what a teacher must go through, having to educate 20 plus kids.”
While most parents struggled, at-home learning wasn’t without its benefits. For starters, a whopping 96% of parents learnt that some children need more individual assistance when it comes to their schooling .
As Dr Selina Samuels, CLO of Cluey, observed, “One of the clear benefits of the school lockdowns and at-home learning was the insight that parents gained into what their children are doing at school and how they learn. The great majority of the parents we spoke to said that they realised that, to thrive, their children need a more individualised approach to their learning.”
In fact, 88% of parents surveyed feel that children need to be looked at as individuals, rather than part of one group. One parent said, “My child needs more assistance than what a teacher teaching 25+ students can give, and my child is falling behind because of this.” “Large class sizes makes it hard for teachers to give enough attention to help each kid with individual education tasks,” said another.
Despite this only 30% of parents said that more individualised learning was the most important thing that should be introduced into the schooling system, closely followed by ‘regular feedback on their child’s performance’.
“COVID showed us that learning doesn’t only take place in the classroom. The rise in tutoring over the past few years suggests that there is a greater awareness than ever amongst parents that there are different ways to learn and different ways they can support their children. Increasingly, we see parents actively seeking the services – such as Cluey – that they believe will make the greatest difference to their child’s learning rather than expecting everything to come from the classroom.”
