[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.17.6″][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”4″][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.17.6″ featured_placement=”above” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″]<\/p>\n
Lisa Murtagh, Head of Initial Teacher Education, in the School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED), shares her experiences of home schooling.<\/strong><\/p>\n All of a sudden, many of us have found ourselves in the novel position of being a home-educator. From a personal perspective, the past few weeks have been fraught with tears (mine and my son\u2019s) and the reward of lots of treats (movies and sweets). I am currently the Head of Initial Teacher Education at the University of Manchester and have been involved in education for over 25 years. On that basis, you may assume that I have got this home education lark \u2018nailed\u2019. I haven\u2019t! <\/p>\n My experiences so far have ranged from being a compassionate and caring mother, calmly soothing my son\u2019s brow as he tried to solve the area of a sector using \u2018pi r squared\u2019, to that of grumpy, moody mother arguing with my son and husband about Hooke\u2019s law and the use of quadrats to count daffodils in fields. I may be a teacher, but I do not have the answers \u2013 for my son, or any of you reading this. What I am is a mother at home, struggling with competing demands, in what is frankly an unprecedented and frightening time of our lives.<\/p>\n What I can offer you is this. Neither you, nor I are teachers (in the \u2018formal\u2019 meaning of the word) to our children \u2013 primarily we are their parents\/carers. There may be \u2018teaching\u2019 demands being placed on us, in the absence of school-based daily lessons, but first and foremost our role is to provide our children with reassurance \u2013 the current state of affairs is frightening for them at the moment and they need to know we are doing our best to keep them safe. We need to offer them our time and company; they will be missing the social interaction of their friends at school \u2013 and somewhat surprisingly their teachers! <\/p>\n Children need normality, familiarity and structure and so I am trying to stick to a routine. We all know that this is not a holiday, and that routines will help us to get through the days, but by the same token, sticking to a routine can also be incredibly hard. We are currently having fun with Joe Wicks\u2019 morning PE \u2013 although this is far more exhausting than I imagined it would be. But this morning my son was shattered after spending hours online completing school work yesterday \u2013 so he had a lie in this morning and I gave him a note to miss PE! <\/p>\n I originally set my son up a desk in his room. I thought I was doing the right thing in trying to \u2018formalise\u2019 his online learning setting. However, I effectively isolated him during a period of isolation \u2013 he became tearful and frustrated, so he now sits at my dining room table with me as I \u2018zoom\u2019 in and out of meetings \u2013 and that\u2019s OK \u2013 this works for us, but may not for others. We spend lots of time thinking about what joy the day can bring \u2013 typically centred around new meals and treats we can cook together, and movie sets (currently the Hunger Games \u2013 the irony doesn\u2019t escape me!) we can watch in the evening as a family.<\/p>\n Many schools have been providing lots of activities for children to undertake \u2013 this will inevitably be very varied as individual schools and teachers try to come to terms with new ways of engaging children in remote learning. We need to be patient with this. But there are lots of great resources out there that we can tap into, to make learning as fun as it can be. My colleagues and I have compiled a list of useful links that we are available on the University of Manchester SEED StaffNet page <\/a>to provide you all with a little help during this time:<\/p>\n – Home Schooling resources<\/a><\/p>\n The point I am trying to make is that during this time, there is no one-size fits all approach to home-educating and particularly when you are also remote-working. So I am advising that those of you out there that are trying to make the days feel \u2018like school\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s just not possible, so give yourselves and your children a break. Of course it is important to keep on top of your child\u2019s learning, but this has to be balanced. Enjoy the sunshine whilst you can and go out for a walk with your children. Cope with the tears, and have lots of treats.<\/p>\n Useful links:<\/strong> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All of a sudden, many of us have found ourselves in the novel position of being a home-educator. From a personal perspective, the past few weeks have been fraught with tears (mine and my son\u2019s) and the reward of lots of treats (movies and sweets). I am currently the Head of Initial Teacher Education at the University of Manchester and have been involved in education for over 25 years. On that basis, you may assume that I have got this home education lark \u2018nailed\u2019. I haven\u2019t! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" [et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]<\/p> When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]<\/p> [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-of-humanities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3243"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nUniversity of Manchester Parent Support Group on Yammer<\/a>
\nSEED Staffnet page resources<\/a><\/p>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
Sir Cary Cooper: The seven rules of home working<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Sir Cary Cooper: Staying positive in a lockdown \u2013 the seven rules<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Cary Cooper and Julian Skyrme: Why high-performing institutions need to understand wellbeing<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>