FOLLOWING Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's implemention of a 16-day closure of all schools, colleges, universities and childcare facilities across the Republic in an unprecedented lockdown sparked by the coronavirus outbreak, parents in Northern Ireland are awaiting similar measures to be introduced here.
With such an impending announcement comes many questions and worries. Who is going to look after my children if I have to go to work? If I have to work from home, how will I be able to concentrate when the children are at home? How will I keep the children occupied and stay sane? Will my child's education suffer? How will they be able to prepare for forthcoming GCSE or 11-plus exams?
While encouraging parents to follow advice from the Public Health Agency, Department of Health and relevant education authorities, Charlene Brooks, chief executive officer of Parenting NI, does have some advice for parents and young people on preparing for possible school closures.
"In advance of the need for self-isolation, if parents wish to ensure that their children spend time learning it may be worthwhile looking into lending materials, either physical or digital, from libraries," Ms Brooks says.
"Older children will be better able to understand the realities of the pandemic. Particularly if they have access to social media, they may be better informed than you suspect. Work with your child to plan a potential work plan that they can put into action if they are required to stay at home. This will give them something to focus on if school is cancelled."
With new coronavirus developments by the day, parents are unclear over their rights, including to paid leave if they have to stay at home to look after children.
"This is a rapidly changing situation, and although employers are being guided by external advice each may have their own policies regarding employee rights, Parenting NI would advise parents to talk to their employer and seek clarity about what their contingency plans are for their employees," Ms Brooks advises.
"Given the extreme and unique circumstances of this epidemic, it is our hope that employers will be flexible with parents who are facing adverse circumstances.
"Equally for parents of school-aged children there will hopefully be advice being issued from schools as to what activities children could be doing at home and this could guide them as to how to occupy the time for their children."
One local school where preparations for enforced closures are well in hand is Millennium Integrated Primary School in Saintfield. Its principal, Barry Corrigan, says the staff have been preparing for the prospect of remote learning for some time.
"Whilst we could sit here and wait for people to tell us what to do, we have decided to be pro-active and make our own preparations for remote learning," he says.
As a Microsoft Showcase School, Millennium's pupils, staff and parents are already familiar with a range of technological programs and apps, according to the head.
"It's about being imaginative. Not all learning is about writing stuff in a book. We are looking at coding activities children can do online to keep their ICT skills at a high level, as well as linking into websites like BBC Bitesize," Mr Corrigan adds.
"We are very conscious that our parents of pupils in P6 are looking at transfer test preparation and we are trying to minimise the impact of any closure upon them with online assessments set up on the internet within the google classroom."
The school is, of course, mindful that not all parents or guardians have access to technology at home.
"We have also been putting together offline teaching packs that can be sent home," Mr Corrigan says. "It also gives a bit of structure to the day where parents can do activities for an hour."
And if schools are closed, Millennium has plans to have teachers available during certain parts of the day, via communication apps, to "communicate ideas, lessons and learning opportunities for the children".
Belfast mum-of-three and primary school teacher Michelle Connolly is no stranger to the benefits of online learning.
Her Learning Mole website and Youtube channel has more than 9,000 subscribers and 2.1 million views. Set up four years ago with the aim of demystifying primary education for parents and to enable them to help their children learn, in recent months Learning Mole has attracted a huge following in Asia.
“Online learning is the perfect solution in a situation like the coronavirus," Ms Connolly says. "We are finding that our video downloads in Asia have increased massively.
“There has been an incredible change in education over the past years – with much more interest in digital. I expect that what is happening now will make digital education become mainstream."
Aimed at parents of three-to-11-year-olds, and covering subjects such as phonics, multiplication and STEM, Ms Connolly’s own children Aaron (nine), James (seven) and, more recently, three-year-old Olivia have all featured in the videos.
“Parents want to make sure that their children are spending their screen time in an educational way, enjoying the content and learning at the same time,” says Ms Connolly, who is also in the process of creating a learning platform for UK schools, as well as aids for parents.
Many other resources are available on the internet. Online educational publishing house Twinkl is offering free access for a month due to the coronavirus to parents and teachers. Just go to twinkl.co.uk/offer and use the code UKTWINKLHELPS.
And in response to the closure of schools in the Republic Sarah Webb, award-winning children's writer and children's programmer for the International Literature Festival Dublin, is posting free online writing games, creative activities and a weekly online class. Follow her on Twitter @sarahwebbishere.
