Parents struggling as they juggle work with home-schooling

Schools and nurseries have now been closed across the country for five weeks, and the stress and strain on parents is obvious. Many parents are having to juggle working from home with home-schooling, and it is no surprise that Dr Justin Williams, a psychiatry expert at the University of Aberdeen, has concluded that stress amongst parents is growing as the lockdown continues.

Most parents are not trained to educate their children, many will not have the time or the expertise to do so, despite many schools providing online educational tools. Trying to educate your child while doing your job effectively is surely not feasible in the medium or long term.

There is also the obvious impact on children. If schools here don’t return until September, that will be the best part of half a year wiped away from a child’s education. That is vitally important from both an educational and social perspective.

Of course it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to flick a switch and expect schools to return exactly as they operated before. A staggered return at some stage for different age groups has been mooted, while reducing classroom numbers might make social distancing easier to achieve.

The bottom line is that even having children returning to school for part of a week, or for a few hours each day, would not only benefit the children, but also reduce the aforementioned stress and strain on parents.

Schools in Denmark have already returned after closing during lockdown while lessons are scheduled to resume in France on May 11. Planning when and how schools return across the UK must surely be a key part of the government’s lockdown exit strategy.