These are unprecedented times and, in a just a matter of weeks, it’s already changed how we go about our day-to-day lives, bringing both new challenges and opportunities as we have been asked to stay at home.
With parents and students together at home throughout the day, one such challenge is how to balance working from home and trying to homeschool your children.
Approaching Easter, in normal circumstances, it’s a time when hundreds of students would be packed into halls, going to ‘grinds schools’ in preparation for summer exams (which are still due to go ahead, as reported by Leo Varadkar last week).
However, in the current climate, going to physical grind classes is just not possible. So, parents are looking for other ways to help support students who are studying for exams or, indeed, just want to keep their minds engaged during this strange period.
With the restrictions on movement in place during this pandemic, it has created the biggest experiment ever in students learning from home. We are fortunate enough to have technology in these times to keep us connected, keep us learning and keep us sane.
At Homeschool.ie, we believe that e-learning is the best way to support students and make parents' life easier during this tough time:
- At a fraction of the cost of typical grinds, it levels the playing field, allowing all students to benefit from additional learning support outside of school
- Students can work at their own pace, pause lessons to digest the information, make notes or take a break
- Different students have different learning styles. Our courses approach lessons in different ways to ensure the materials are easy to understand for all students
- Take lessons from the comfort and safety of their own home. No distractions and no need for them to be scared of answering questions in front of other students.
Homeschool.ie provides an online tuition service for Primary, Junior and Leaving Certificate students that allows each student to revise an entire subject syllabus over the course of a single year.
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Taught by some of the best, most engaging teachers in the country, students who enrol at Homeschool.ie receive:
- On-demand access to 24 pre-recorded video lessons that cover the entire subject syllabus in one year
- Outstanding comprehensive study manuals and sample answers on each subject topic
- A homework task that will be assigned at the end of each week's lesson to reinforce student learning and understanding.
We set up Homeschool.ie as a public service to help students who struggled to physically attend school regularly due to illness, anxiety-related issues or other reasons.
It was when my mum had a lung transplant back in 2012 that I saw my fair share of young people - specifically those with medical issues - struggling with schoolwork due to spending long periods of time in hospital. That was the genesis for the idea. We wanted to provide online tuition for students who can’t attend school.
Off the back of the high demand and positive feedback from our students and their parents, we quickly realised that it's not just those who could not attend school who could benefit from Homeschool.ie. It's a service that every student in Ireland can use to support their studies in an affordable way.
Emily Fitzgerald, Leaving Cert Maths student
“There are no distractions when using Homeschool.ie and it is one on one and also like if you feel that something is being rushed you can just rewatch the lessons and watch them as many times as you need to for revision.”
Kathleen Cooke, parent of Leaving Cert Biology student
“We started using homeschool.ie because one of my daughter’s teachers was absent and the school couldn’t get a replacement teacher. So she wanted a little bit of extra help in that subject. As a parent living in rural county Galway to avail of Grinds we would have to travel quite a bit. homeschool.ie is very convenient to be able to watch any topics at the push of a button in the comfort of your own home.”
Ailill Park-Sullivan, Junior Certificate Maths student
“I liked the pace the lessons were at, they didn’t actually rush through the lessons. You felt you could get a good grasp of the topic after watching each lesson. You have three years of Junior Cert maths and you have 24 lessons at around an hour each meaning you can watch and review an entire subject in this course."
Now is not a time to put pressure on yourself or your child. It’s a difficult period that we’re all trying to navigate and we’re anxious enough without the stress of perfectly balancing working from home and trying to homeschool.
It won’t be perfect. And it doesn’t have to be.
Your children do not have to be studying from 9am - 4pm every day. Just a few hours of scheduled time, with the support of an online learning platform learning at their own pace taught by some of Ireland’s best teachers, will help keep them engaged in schoolwork and prepared for exams.
We want to help support parents and students during these challenging times, which is why we are offering students a €20 discount on each subject with the promotional code STAYSAFE.