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Report: Second Northern Ireland Survey of Parents/Carers on Home-Schooling during the Covid-19 Crisis

Posted on by Andrew McAteer

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has once again forced the vast majority of parents/carers of school-aged children in Northern Ireland to engage in responsibility for ‘home-schooling’, with this second extended period of home learning extending from January to March/April 2021, with the exception of vulnerable children, the children of key workers and children attending special schools. In May 2020, the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement (CREU) at Stranmillis University College, Belfast, published its first report on Home-Schooling in Northern Ireland During the COVID-19 Crisis (Walsh et al., 2020) which highlighted the often very different experiences of children and young people during the first six weeks of the first lockdown. Our report highlighted how home-schooling exacerbated existing inequalities: for instance, we found that less well educated parents felt less confident in supporting their children’s learning; we heard of particular frustrations expressed by working parents, especially key workers; and we learnt that digital poverty was presenting a challenge to many families with limited access to devices, printers and broadband. In the 2020 survey 31% of parents felt that their child(ren)’s emotional wellbeing had become ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’, 49% felt that it had stayed the same, and 20% felt that it had got ‘better’ or ‘much better’.

As we entered the second period of extended home-schooling, CREU launched its follow-up online survey which remained open from 9th-22nd February 2021. The survey had 2002 usable responses, which included data for a total of 3668 individual children, from every part of Northern Ireland. Our comprehensive report shares preliminary findings in order to inform policy and practice in the short- to medium-term as government, schools and society continue to confront the challenges of Covid-19.

Summary of Key Findings:

Home-schooling favours children with better-educated parents

As in 2020, parents with higher levels of education felt more confident in their home-schooling role, and were more likely to play an active role in supporting their child’s learning.

Digital accessibility at home is strongly related to household income

Although there was a slight increase from 2020 in the number of digital devices available to children, and a reduction in the percentage of parents reporting that they had no printer (18% in 2021, compared to 23% in 2020), children from households in the lowest income band were three times more likely to have no printer than children from households in the highest income band (30% vs 11%) and their parents/carers were considerably more likely to feel that the costs of printing (in terms of paper and ink) prevented them from using their printer (25% vs 3%). Children from low-income homes were also more likely to have to share a digital device and/or wait to be able to go online, and were less likely to report fast internet speeds. The geographical analysis also revealed that internet connectivity was worst in rural areas.

Parental experiences varied considerably by gender and employment

Once again the vast majority (96%) of respondents were female and there is a strongly gendered division of labour within most households in the sample, with women much more likely to be in the home, whether working or not, and responsible for child-care and home-schooling to a much greater degree than their male partners. Overall findings suggest that children spent longer on home-schooling activities in 2021 than in 2020, while those parents who reported finding time for home-schooling a challenge were most likely to be juggling work and home-schooling commitments, working either outside or inside the home. Additional questions explored the impact of home-schooling on parental mental health and highlighted that overall almost 80% of parents reported a negative impact on their own mental health and wellbeing, with the most acute impact felt by parents who were working from home.

The impact on children’s mental health and wellbeing, social skills, and behaviour was much more negative in 2021 than during the first lockdown of 2020

The majority of parents/carers felt that the current lockdown/school closures had resulted in their child/ren’s mental health and wellbeing becoming ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’ (51% in 2021 vs 31% in 2020). While 20% of parents in 2020 felt that their child’s mental health had become ‘better’ or ‘much better’, by 2021 this figure had fallen to just 7%. The more negative experiences in 2021 can also be seen in relation to parent/carers’ estimation of the impact of lockdown on their child’s social skills (49% ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’ in 2021 vs 29% in 2020), and level of behaviour (35% ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’ in 2021 vs 29% in 2020). In the current survey we also asked parents/carers about the impact on their child’s physical health and wellbeing and found that 47% felt that this was now ‘worse’ or ‘much worse’ than pre-lockdown with only 8% believing that it was ‘better’ or ‘much better’.   The survey did reveal, encouragingly, that where schools placed importance or high importance on nurture, safety and well-being (according to parents/carers) this had a highly significant, positive, impact on reported levels of motivation, mental health and wellbeing, social skills, and physical health and wellbeing, compared to those schools who were not reported to value these approaches.  Only a third (33%) of parents indicated that they were in favour of their child repeating the 2020/21 year due to the impact of school closures, with 54% opposed to the idea and 13% unsure. Parents of primary aged children were on the whole more likely to be in favour of their child repeating the school year than post-primary aged children, with the exception of the parents of P7 children where less than a quarter (24%) were in favour of their child repeating the year.

Parents/carers are broadly happy with both the quality and the quantity of learning resources provided by their children’s schools

Almost two-thirds (65%) of parents felt that the quality of learning resources was better or much better than during the first lockdown, with only 6% claiming that the provision was worse. The same majority (65%) were happy with the quantity of resources, an increase of 3% since the 2020 survey.

The number of parents who report that their child’s school engages in some live online teaching has doubled since 2020

Reports live teaching increased from 24% to almost 50%, while the number of schools not engaging at all in live online teaching has fallen from 77% to just over 50%. This is a significant shift, and represents a positive response to the most common recommendation given by parents in the May 2020 survey and in this survey. Nonetheless, this study has shown that the provision of live online teaching is still not universal, and is significantly skewed towards older, post-primary pupils and especially those attending voluntary grammar schools and Irish medium schools.

There are widely divergent experiences depending on the age and year group of the children

There were particular issues to emerge in respect of our youngest children who spent least time engaged in formal home-schooling activities and least time being taught live online. Their parents often reported that their children were missing opportunities to play and to be outside, but there are indications from the data that opportunities during lockdown to engage in play and in outdoor learning were associated with higher levels of motivation, mental health and physical health and wellbeing.

There was a focus on disrupted assessment for many parents

For instance, for parents of pupils in years 6-8, there was a strong focus on the transfer tests, including fear and anxiety expressed by parents of the current P6 cohort faced with the uncertainty of what might happen next year; anger and frustration by parents of the current P7 cohort whose year had been dominated by the postponement and eventual cancellation of the transfer tests, with a feeling among a majority that contingency assessment methods ought to have been planned earlier; and among year 8 parents a belief that their children had missed out on the normal preparation for transition to post-primary schools and that some were not adjusting as well as might have been expected as a result. For many parents of pupils in years 12-14, there was again a sense of frustration that the revised methods of assessment could disadvantage their children’s future.

Read the full report here

 

Home-schooling in the COVID-19 crisis: second survey launched

Posted on by Andrew McAteer

A team from Stranmillis University College’s Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement (CREU) has launched a second survey for parents/carers home-schooling children aged 3 to 18/19 within the context of the renewed 2021 COVID-19 restrictions in Northern Ireland.

CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE SURVEY.

The team are keen to gather information from parents/carers about the everyday realities of home-schooling, to compare with findings from last year’s survey. The last survey was really successful in informing the work of the Department of Education, the Education Authority, schools and voluntary sector organisations – we’d like to repeat that success, and find out how things have changed since last year.

Dr Noel Purdy, Director of CREU, explains, “This is an important and timely survey and we would encourage as many parents and carers as possible to take some well-deserved time out from home-schooling to complete the survey by noon on Monday 22nd February.  And please tell your friends and share the survey so that we have as many responses as possible, allowing us to have as representative a picture of what home-schooling is really like across all age groups and abilities in Northern Ireland.”

Click here to complete the survey.

The Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement is based at Stranmillis University College, Belfast.  It is committed to researching issues around achievement affecting children, their parents/carers and teachers in Northern Ireland and beyond, and is guided by the principles of rigour, partnership and impact.  Read our recent blog posts on homeschooling and other educational issues here here.  See also ‘Playful Ideas for Active Minds’ – free resources, ideas and activities produced by our PGCE (Early Years) students to minimize the impact of school closure on young children’s educational development.

 

“There is no education like adversity”: learning from the positive experiences of lockdown

Posted on by Andrew McAteer

As Disraeli once wrote “there is no education like adversity”, a maxim that seems just as relevant during the current pandemic crisis as when it was first penned a century and a half ago. In this blog we consider what can be learnt from the positive experiences of home learning for some children and families during lockdown.

Dr Noel Purdy is Director of the Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement at Stranmillis University College, Belfast.

Alistair Hamill is Senior Leader in Lurgan College, responsible for Teaching & Learning, and Learning Lead in Craigavon Area Learning Community.

There is now a wealth of evidence from studies here in Northern Ireland (Walsh et al., 2020, O’Connor et al., 2020) across the rest of the UK (Sutton Trust, 2020; IFS, 2020), in the Republic of Ireland (Mohan et al., 2020) and further afield (Goldstein, 2020), that lockdown has been very challenging for many children and for their parents/carers, often leading to an exacerbation of existing social inequalities (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2020; ONS, 2020) and widely divergent educational experiences.

Among those most likely to be negatively impacted have been those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, those with special educational needs and those in rural areas with poor internet connectivity (Walsh et al., 2020; O’Connor et al., 2020). Most of our attention has now justifiably turned towards planning for what has been referred to as a flexible ‘recovery curriculum’ to prioritise emotional wellbeing needs, to redress the imbalance of educational access and to bridge the learning gap which will inevitably have widened during lockdown.

However, it is important to acknowledge that there have also been some children who have had overwhelmingly positive experiences of learning at home since March, and we argue here that there is also an onus on schools to meet their needs during the Restart and, where possible and appropriate, to seek to learn from and use their positive experiences to promote better learning dispositions among the wider peer group.

Many families have enjoyed home learning

First, and most broadly, the findings of the CREU online parental survey carried out in April/May  highlight that for a sizeable minority of families, the experience of home learning has been enjoyable, offering them an opportunity to spend more time together, enjoying a calmer pace of life, giving parents time to engage confidently and more directly than ever before in their children’s learning, supported by appropriate online resources from the school, while also giving children more time to play, relax and enjoy the outdoors.  Indeed this resonates with a recent UK-wide study where 26% of parents reported that their relationship with their children had improved during lockdown (especially where the youngest child was under 4 years old) and only 4% said the relationship had worsened.  In open-ended comments from the Stranmillis CREU study, several parents also commented specifically on how their children were really enjoying the home-schooling experience (though often missing their friends and classmates), feeling less stressed by the pressure of external exams, benefitting from a ‘slower pace of life’, and enjoying opportunities to re-connect as a family:

The difference in our kids is amazing they are so much happier and more relaxed the whole house is much less stressed, adults included.

I think my children have coped very well – they are settled, contented and enjoy the cocoon of home.

It has given my children more time to play freely which is positive.

My son suffers with anxiety at school and with being at home with the lockdown I find it really has helped my son focus more on school work and not the class clown or feeling anxious or worried so he definitely seems more relaxed and has the head space to study better with less stress

Some children with ASD and ADHD are benefitting

Second, and more specifically, while it has been noted by NICCY and others that many children with special educational needs have undoubtedly struggled with the lack of additional learning support, therapeutic intervention, familiar structure, leisure and respite opportunities, conversely a smaller number of other children with special educational needs have actually thrived.  Some parents in the CREU survey spoke of children with ASD and ADHD in particular whose anxiety levels have fallen, free from the social pressures of a busy school environment, away from the threat of bullying, and able to learn in a less regimented, more flexible and secure home environment:

Our son has Aspergers. He is v bright but lacks concentration. When he is in the mood to do work, we do it. He needs a lot of attention to keep him in tasks.  Generally speaking he is much less anxious than when at school, he struggles with the social side of school which results in massive anxieties and OCD behaviours. These have significantly reduced since he has been at home.

My child is currently being assessed for ADHD which does at time impact her focus and motivation and I feel she has enjoyed the flexibility/autonomy of our lessons.

I think my dyslexic son benefits as he doesn’t have the same pressures as the classroom and I can work with him 1-1 and produce much better work than when he is in a class of nearly 30 pupils. I can also work one on one to improve his attention issues.

Remote learning has benefits for pupil self-regulation

Third, lockdown has highlighted the importance of self-regulation among learners.  Schools provide a highly structured, regulated environment, with a high degree of timely accountability for the pupils as they do their work. For pupils who struggle with self-regulation, this environment can, at the very least, produce compliant learners: pupils who will turn up to class, generally do the work set by the teacher and mostly hand work in on time. In the lockdown environment, the loss of the direct experience of this structure, regulation and accountability has left pupils with much more freedom – and responsibility – to self-regulate. A recent ETI report found that many post-primary pupils struggled even with basic levels of compliance in this context, but there is evidence that other pupils managed this freedom very well, supported by learning resources from, and interactions with, their teachers.  More significantly, there is evidence from studies such as a recent school-based study in the Netherlands that learners who can self-regulate go on to achieve more highly.

So, what are the qualities exhibited by such pupils and what can we learn from them? An Education Endowment Foundation report summarises the evidence on self-regulation and metacognition, and cites a range of strategies that help pupils learn independently, including: ‘setting specific short-term goals, adopting powerful strategies for attaining the goals, monitoring performance for signs of progress, restructuring one’s physical and social context to make it compatible with one’s goals; managing time-use efficiently; self-evaluating one’s methods; attributing causation to results and adapting future methods’.

Based on the additional experience of online teaching of 14-18 year olds in one local grammar school during lockdown, it has become clear that some pupils, especially those in KS4/5, have developed sufficient self-regulation skills not only to comply with the work set, but to become fully engaged in their learning. More than that, it has given some pupils a high degree of agency in their own learning, as they have shown significant self-awareness to adapt their learning schedules and strategies based on self-reflection to align with how they learn best. These include pupils who have designed their own learning timetable for the week, using the learning support from the school as a foundation, but adapting it, based on a high degree of self-awareness, to best facilitate their own learning.

Looking ahead we would recommend that schools seek to do more to develop self-regulation skills among pupils, a view echoed by the EEF, whose report on remote learning published at the start of lockdown, made the following recommendation:

Supporting pupils to work independently can improve learning outcomes. Pupils learning at home will often need to work independently. Multiple reviews identify the value of strategies that help pupils work independently with success … Wider evidence related to metacognition and self-regulation suggests that disadvantaged pupils are likely to particularly benefit from explicit support to help them work independently, for example, by providing checklists or daily plans.

With the possibility of further school disruptions in the 2020/21 school year, the need to train pupils in self-regulation skills early upon their return to school is imperative.

Learning from lockdown

As schools transition back to a blended model of face to face and remote learning, how do we respond to what has been learnt from this time? The following questions might facilitate some self-reflection for teachers, school leaders and policy-makers:

1. How do we ensure that our approach to education after lockdown is more balanced?

In what ways can we make school less pressured, more pastoral, less assessment-driven and more focused on the well-being of individual children, while recognising the potential to build on positive experiences of family and parental engagement since March?  How do we prioritise relationships – within schools, within families and between schools and families?

2. How do we best prepare some of most vulnerable learners with special educational needs for the return to school in August/September?

It must be acknowledged that this will not be a return to school as they knew it before, and that during the last few months, new routines will have become established in settled home environments where face-to-face social interaction and communication could be kept to a minimum.  How do we ensure that these pupils’ anxiety at the prospect of the Restart is minimised, and that school itself is a safer, happier place for all learners, irrespective of their needs?

3. How do we best support the full range of pupils’ self-regulation habits as schools open more widely?

How do we find ways of fostering and encouraging the continued growth of effective self-regulation shown by some pupils? In what ways do we ensure that the re-introduction of the highly structured environment of school does not cause them to lose the agency they have developed during remote learning? How can we find ways of sharing this effective practice with those pupils who have struggled more with this, encouraging them to learn from the example of their peers? And, how do we explicitly teach and upskill all pupils in the learnable techniques of self-regulation and metacognition?

We not have not sought here to deny or minimise the reality of the challenges faced by many children and their parents during lockdown (and these have already been well documented).  Instead we set out to look for learning opportunities as a result of positive experiences where they did occur, despite adversity.  In reporting these here, we hope to have provided some encouragement, though also many further questions to consider together over the coming days.  In so doing, we have every confidence in the educational workforce of Northern Ireland to rise to the challenges that lie ahead.

Report: Home-Schooling in Northern Ireland during the COVID-19 Crisis

Posted on by Andrew McAteer

The past few months have been utterly remarkable. They have: forced parents/carers to assume a greater role than ever before in their child/ren’s education; tested schools and teachers to their limits in terms of adapting fast to providing (mostly online) resources for home learning; and thrown children into a new, confined online learning environment at home. All amid a broader context of fear and uncertainty caused by a global pandemic.

Despite the upheaval, it is vital that our children’s education and our families’ wellbeing is monitored and understood by policymakers, service providers, and the research community. It is likely that the shutdown is leading to widening educational inequality. The Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement ran an online survey on parents/carers’ experiences of home-schooling during the lockdown in early May 2020, which received over 2000 responses from across Northern Ireland. The survey asked how parents/carers were approaching home-schooling, how schools were supporting them, and what could be done to better support their households.

Click here to download the full report, and read below for a summary of the key findings.

1. Parental education and employment status make a big difference

The level of parental education and employment status appears to mediate a strong divergence in experience. Parents/carers educated to university level are over 4 times more likely to be working from home than parents/carers with no qualifications, who are much more likely to have been furloughed. Those with university-level education are the most likely to become directly involved in their children’s home-schooling through teaching them directly (26.7%) or actively supporting their children’s learning (52.6%). In contrast, parents/carers without a degree are more likely to report lower levels of confidence in managing home-education, and to report simply ‘monitoring’ their child’s learning.

2. Essential Workers are least able to devote time to home-schooling

This survey highlights the particular challenges faced by Essential Workers. They are least likely to engage directly in their child/ren’s home-schooling (e.g. least likely to teach or actively support their learning) and are most likely to encourage their child/ren to learn independently as a result of having to work shifts outside the home. Essential Workers are often working longer hours than before and are at greatest risk of becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus. While not universal among the group of Essential Workers, the strongest expressions of frustration and desperation came from within this group, struggling with physical exhaustion, fear of infection, an inability to spend as much time with their children to support their learning, and, in several cases, a resulting sense of guilt and anger.

3. Parents/Carers are calling for live teaching and pre-printed resources

Almost a quarter of respondents do not have a printer, and many expressed a desire for more printed packs of work to be provided and complained of the costs incurred in providing printer ink and paper. We also found that only half of children have their own device to access online resources for schoolwork.

When asked for a single recommendation to improve home-schooling, parents/carers’ most common call was more live interaction with teachers. This could be for as little as twenty minutes once a week, either to introduce new curricular topics, or (especially with younger children) to allow some peer or pastoral interaction to raise motivation levels. We acknowledge the valid concerns of teaching unions and school leaders around the safeguarding of children and teachers, and encourage creative thinking about how the benefits of teacher/pupil interaction may be achieved safely.

4. Lockdown is affecting each child differently

The study provides some insights into children’s experiences of the lockdown learning period. Older children tend to prefer learning at school (and miss school more) while younger children are more likely to prefer the home environment. Most parents/carers suggest that children’s social skills and behaviour haven’t changed since schools closed. The area where children are most likely to have benefited is in their emotional well-being, where around 1 in 5 claim that there has been an improvement. By contrast, 3 in 5 claim that their child/ren’s level of motivation to learn has become worse since home-schooling began. Overall, we observe a very broad range of experiences, from accounts of more relaxed children enjoying peaceful family time and playing outside or engaging in many different leisure activities within the home, to children who are missing their friends and their teachers, struggling to learn, and falling further behind their peers.

“It’s flipping hard work”

The purpose of this report is not to ascribe blame, to undermine professional reputations, or to expose individuals. We share a joint responsibility to improve the situation for everyone, especially those disadvantaged by this continued period of home-schooling.

To quote some respondents, it is clear that for many engaged in home-schooling, “it’s flipping hard work”. “The novelty has worn off”, and “Nobody chose this”. Let us hope that we can learn the lessons of the past eight weeks so that all children can learn more successfully, happily and equitably for the remainder of the lockdown period and beyond.