Home schooling again? Here's how

Many parents enjoyed teaching their children at home during the first lockdown, but for others, the prospect of having to dust off their teaching skills again fills them with dread.

What programme of work should they follow? Should the children guide the learning or should it be imposed, with the parent in the role of a conventional teacher? How can they keep their child engaged in learning? What should they do when concentration fades?

A group of former primary school teachers have come to the rescue with Learn at Home Packs. Each one contains eight lessons with teacher-led teaching input videos, parent-friendly friendly lesson plans, slideshow presentations and printable worksheets.

Oli Ryan of educational resource gurus PlanBee said: 'We hope these packs will take some of the pressure off parents who are new to home schooling. They're designed specifically for mums and dads, so there's no educational jargon.

"Educating your children at home can seem a pretty daunting prospect, but with these packs, we think we're helping with the heavy lifting."

The packs cover interesting and unusual topics such as forensic science, Italian culture, women's suffrage and even include simple easy-to-follow cookery lessons.

"We wanted to make sure that the lesson packs were educational, but interesting and fun, too," said Oli. "We've made sure they cover topics that children are unlikely to have learnt about in school previously – hopefully it'll all be new to them."

PlanBee have put one of the lesson videos up online for FREE, so you can get a taste of what's included in the packs. And there are lots of free teaching resources for parents here.