While pupils’ participation in school lessons is being monitored parents have been reminded they don’t need to be teaching all day.
Fife Council’s education chief said the local authority recognised that families may be going through a stressful time.
While most pupils are learning from home until at least the end of January, schools across Tayside and Fife are monitoring levels of engagement with online classes and assignments to determine where extra support is needed.
Fife executive director of education and children’s services, Carrie Lindsay, spoke of remote learning expectations in a letter to parents on Monday.
She also insisted the education authority was striving to ensure youngsters were not disadvantaged by being out of school again, after several weeks of home learning last year due to the pandemic.
Mrs Lindsay said: “We are working closely with schools to make sure that they are all able to provide effective remote learning and teaching, but schools are in the best position to know and understand what’s going to work best for individual pupils, classes and communities.
“We don’t expect parents to be teaching their children for six hours a day, either.
“We know that this is a very difficult time for a lot of people.
“Families might be dealing with a number of different stresses right now and no-one wants to add to that.
We don’t expect parents to be teaching their children for six hours a day… We know that this is a very difficult time for a lot of people.”
Carrie Lindsay, Fife Council
“We also know that most parents do want to help and support their children and there are lots of different resources out there to help with that.”
Schools, she said, each had their own way of delivering learning remotely, with teaching planned to suit classes’ and children’s individual needs.
She said: “This is obviously not the way we were hoping to begin this year, but our schools have been preparing for remote learning since last year and you can be reassured that we are doing all we can to make sure that our children are not being disadvantaged by this further lockdown.”
Government update
Parents were directed to more information on home learning in a presentation by Fife pedagogy team.
Only children of key workers and the most vulnerable children are permitted to attend school during January, with tighter coronavirus restrictions in place.
An update on remote learning is expected from the Scottish Government on Tuesday.
However, education secretary John Swinney has already admitted it will be a “tall order” to reopen schools at the start of February.
