Home Schooling - Australian Parents Council

Home Schooling

Advice, support and resources for parents with children learning from home

Go Back

How to cope with kids at home, encourage and support their learning, answer questions and look after their wellbeing whilst learning from home.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about some challenging times for many families, with kids suddenly home from school, learning remotely and family routines disrupted. Whilst many families across Australia already had young children being home schooled prior to the pandemic, and continue to do so, this page aims to provide parents and carers with some useful advice, support and resources to help navigate the new teaching/learning set-up and keep your kids learning and safe. Please contact us if you think we need to add anything or have any questions.

Here are APC’s top three tips for managing learning at home.

1. You know your child best so do what they need to do
2. Take a dance break when you or your kids need it! Try “Shake it off” by Taylor Swift
3. Have them pack their lunch and take recess like usual, and send them off to school via the front door and make the back door the school entrance.

But mostly, just remember to try to have some fun together.

Quick links to government information

Below are links to federal and state and territory government information sites. Many States and territories have special pages with information for parents to help support children’s learning at home. We have included direct links below if they have, otherwise we have included links to general COVID-19 information pages.

COVID-19: an online safety kit for parents and carers

Department of Education – Coronavirus (COVID-19)

ACT Government – Education & Training – Home Education (Home Schooling)

NSW Department of Education – Learning Remotely

Northern Territory – Distance and Online Learning

Queensland Department of Education – learning@home

Victorian Department of Education – Teaching Materials and Methods

ACARA – parent information about the Australian curriculum and learning at home

Learning Potential website and app for parents

Learning at home tips for parents

Here are 10 top tips for Primary kids from Smart Achievers:

Do some vigorous exercise before school

There’s lots of studies to support doing physical activity before any learning exercise, but the premise is it improves concentration levels. Keep it fun too, such as crazy dancing to some music.

Start a learning session with a game as a mental warm-up

With concentration in mind again, games such as Uno, Connect 4 or other card games, provide a nice way to ease your child into learning mode. It helps children feel happy, and happy kids learn better.

Sit your child on a chair that does NOT swivel

It’s no surprise to anyone that the location of where your child is learning is important, but also the desk and chair they use. The novelty of swivel chairs is distracting to kids and will take their eyes off their task. A tidy working space is also advisable.

Make sure their tools are ready to go

Similarly, it’s important their workspace is set up for the start of class-time, like at school. This means have tools like glasses, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, etc., ready and organised, as a tidy working space free of distractions helps.

Turn off distracting noises

There’s plenty of distractions inside every home, namely the TV or radio, or devices such as laptops, tablets or phones. Turn them off, put them on silent and move them well away from the workspace.

Have set and regular feeding, exercise and break times

Maintaining a routine is important in life and home schooling is no different. Be regimented with regular feeding/recess/lunch breaks, along with set times for exercise and games breaks.

Get your child prepared

Having a planned day is one thing but sticking to it is another. The need for a toilet break or a thirsty and/or hungry child is a quick way to de-rail those plans. Sort that before learning time.

Stay positive

If a child makes a mistake when reading, ask them to ‘try that again’, ‘sound out the word’ or ‘read the base word first and then the whole word’.

Challenge them

Ask them to count forwards and backwards orally to the 10th factor, e.g. 2 to 20 and 20 to 2.

Check they can SAY the alphabet

Lots of children can sing the alphabet but can they actually say it? The tune has meant some letters have blurred into one word, like ‘Elemenopee’ or ‘Elmo’! This is an easy one to fix at home.