Supervising kids and working from home a struggle for some parents

Supervising their children's learning at home while working from home is a struggle for many parents, as Singapore started full home-based learning yesterday.

Ms Michele Tan had to wake up at 7am to do her work so that she could focus on her Primary 3 daughter from 9.30am.

"This is only the first day. I will have to work out a schedule for the rest of the month," the administrative executive, who is in her mid-30s and working from home, told The Straits Times yesterday.

Home-based learning will continue till May 4, which is when the stay-home circuit breaker period is scheduled to end.

Schools are also giving their students varying amounts of work on the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS) platform, said parents.

Some received detailed checklists while others were given just a few assignments. When contacted, the Ministry of Education said schools and teachers decide what is best for their students.

They "have the autonomy to decide on the sequencing of topics, pace of coverage and pedagogy applied, based on the profile and learning needs of their students", said deputy director-general of education (curriculum) Sng Chern Wei.

Teachers will decide on the content to be taught based on the learning stage of their classes, he added, and schools will keep the load manageable.

In general, primary, secondary and JC students are given four, five and six hours of home-based learning a day, respectively, and the pace and scope of homework and assignments will align with these hours.

"Teachers will also discuss how (students) can be better engaged with their parents," Mr Sng added.

TO-DO LIST

Ms Tan's daughter received a detailed to-do list on the day's work, ranging from the usual academic subjects such as English, mathematics and science to the non-academic like music and physical education.

"My daughter is not used to home-based learning, she's not a very independent learner yet. She kept asking me questions, and I also had to help with technical issues such as websites not loading or videos not playing smoothly."

Her concern is that the children will miss interacting with their classmates and teachers.

"Parents from my daughter's class are trying to arrange Zoom sessions for the kids to have communication time... Some classes already have a 'Zoom recess', short breaks where the children eat meals together via video call."

Other parents, like Mrs Janeshtha Vaswani, 47, struggle to juggle their work and helping their children.

"My son keeps asking me to check his work before he submits it... But we still have our own work to do and take our own calls. So it can be difficult to cope," said the assistant manager at a medical school.

But some parents like Mr Aaron Koh, 44, who has a Primary 6 son, said lessons went smoothly as they had done extensive preparations.

He had all the needed passwords ready and also bookmarked links his son's teachers had sent for easy access. He had also bought more reams of paper and ink cartridges for his printer at home.

Mr Koh, who works in software sales, has been working from home for the past two years and as a result, he was "probably more prepared than most parents".

"My son can be distracted sometimes... so I have to periodically check on him. But I know how to manage my time."

Secondary 2 student Chloe Wong said she spent about five hours on home-based learning using SLS.

She sent her English literature teacher a WhatsApp message for help for an assignment, and the teacher "was a bit slow" in her reply.

"But she teaches the subject for all classes at my level, so I understand."

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