What at home learning has taught Australians

Almost 60 per cent of primary school parents agree that their work and/or career has been impacted due to their child learning at home, according to new research from Cluey Learning. Private school parents are significantly more likely to believe their career has “suffered”.

When it comes to quality of life, 29 per cent of primary school parents admit at-home learning has negatively impacted them while 21 per cent have experienced a positive impact. 

As school restrictions start to ease across Australia, online tutoring company Cluey Learning is releasing the results of its research series which details the impact of homeschooling in a time of COVID-19.

Primary school parents also revealed:

• They better understand how their child learns as a result of at-home learning (over 65%)
• Almost one third believe their child’s learning has suffered during this period
• Lack of peer-to-peer learning has been the biggest educational challenge for their child (47%)
• Their child likes or even loves online learning (48%)

Cluey Chief Learning Officer, Dr Selina Samuels said: 

“We often hear from parents that they turn to tutors or seek out extra educational support when they’ve been blindsided by their child’s report card, exam results or received unexpected teacher feedback. While this period has presented many challenges, it’s given parents a much deeper insight into what their child is learning at school and their learning gaps. Parents now have a lot of observations to draw on to support their child’s learning moving forward.” 

Cluey’s research also revealed that remote learning experiences vary across Australia: 

• Metropolitan students are significantly more likely to receive live online classroom sessions compared to regional/rural students
• Public school students are significantly more likely to receive worksheets as their main learning method (vs. pre-recorded or live classes) compared to students in private schools
• Private school parents are significantly more likely to have been offered time with their child’s teacher to discuss their learning progress compared to students in public and Catholic schools

“Technology can and should bolster real time interactions between students and teachers. Yet only some children have been lucky enough to experience this during this period of isolation. Remote learning has heightened educational inequities across Australia,” says Dr Samuels.

Earlier in May, Cluey released the first wave of primary parent research results which are available here: https://clueylearning.com.au/blog/research-into-impact-of-home-learning/. The research covered the types of interactions students had with their teachers, the time commitment parents made to support their child’s learning and the ways this affected their careers.

For further research insights and guidance on maintaining continuity of learning, follow https://clueylearning.com.au/blog/. 

Dynata supplied the sample for this survey conducted by Cluey Learning among 608 parents of primary school children in April and May 2020. The data has been weighted by gender, state and school type to represent ABS statistics.

 

About Cluey Learning:

Cluey Learning delivers personalised online tutoring support for students in Years 2 -12, across Maths, English and Chemistry. All content is mapped to the Australian National Curriculum and is based on the unique learning needs of each individual student. Cluey has supported over 6,000 Australian families, run over 60,000 sessions and has been rated 4.7/5 by parents and students. 

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