Homeschool fails & flex after lockdown
On Monday morning, the kids’ teachers all sent us a cheery memo about last week’s work. There were scans of neat rabbit drawings, improper fractions, and diary entries where ‘because’ was spelt in the traditional way. No surprise, my kids’ work didn’t feature. But even I confess to a touch of shame that they hadn’t completed any of the showcased tasks.
Determined to step things up around here, I scoured their project boxes for stuff I could upload. I found a rambling account of Super Sheep’s arrest for loud singing, a picture of Pikachu, and the crumpled tinfoil of an Easter egg. The choice loomed: lean into the conflict of those timetables—or try another Disney animal film? Monkey Kingdom’s a gem if you too have failed to cancel your ‘free’ Disney channel sign up.
To help decide, I spoke to Pippa Wright, the former deputy head of our kids’ school who went on to be the headteacher at a school in Bexley, about last week’s survey showing that 67% of working parents say they are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressed. Home schooling is a big (walloping) piece of that.
Pippa Wright
Experienced primary head: specialist in phonics and raising standards in Key Stage 2
She is full of wisdom—play to your strengths, get some perspective, and stop stressing your household out. On her advice, we spent a very happy rainy afternoon doing art videos from YouTube. Theirs are a bit shit but my finger-paint blossom tree is definitely a contender for that newsletter.
Yesterday I listened again to conversation the super-inquisitive Emma Gannon and I had back in February about the realities of flexible work for her podcast, CTRL ALT DELETE (link below). It chimes in with a few articles I’ve been sent recently claiming that all of this enforced remote working is the answer to workplace equality because everyone will now be able to work however they want. Carers and parents will be *liberated* to work flexibly and thrive.
It got me wondering… is that likely?
Already I’ve been hearing from HR directors about managers wanting to review people who aren’t ‘committed’ or productive enough during lockdown. These people just happen to be the ones besieged by a couple of toddlers and in households juggling two massive workloads or struggling on their own. There are reports of women being more likely to be furloughed because of childcare pressure than men. It begs the question: will they all get their jobs back? And, on what terms? Meanwhile of course, many of those without any caring responsibilities, are more productive than ever before, and very reasonably, will expect to be rewarded for that.
Beyond lockdown, Transport for London has calculated that tubes would have to run at 15% of their normal capacity to meet social distancing rules. If a similar percentage is applied to mainline trains and buses, far fewer people will be going to the office every day. Those that do, may need to be up and out by 5am. Which means that whoever does the school or nursery drop off, may risk not being able to get on a train at all. Am picturing offices full of the 80+ hours a week a gang and it’s reminding me of Canary Wharf trading floors c2007.
So let’s not assume remote working will be a panacea for equality: it’ll be complicated, in some ways better but in some ways probably harder too. We need to keep an eye on it.
But not quite as much as I do on my kids since they found a bedstead on the street and turned it into a go-kart. Next week’s update is coming from A&E.
- Christine
Ps. You can listen to the CTRL ALT DEL podcast episode here on Apple Podcasts & Spotify
