The majority of children in the UK are being home schooled at the moment due to the COVID-19 outbreak. For many parents, this can present a challenge, especially when they’re having to help their youngsters work through lessons relating to subjects they don’t know a lot about.

The Guardian recently offered some advice on how to reduce stress when you’re home schooling your kids.

Among the top tips are to set timings for the activities or subjects you’re going to study each day, but to be realistic about how long different things will take. The newspaper advises building practical activities into your ‘school’ as much as possible, especially with primary age children.

Deputy head teacher of Macaulay Church of England primary school in Lambeth, London Amanda Grace told the news provider that in primary school it’s good to follow the rule of only talking for as many minutes as a child’s age, plus two. So if you’re teaching a seven year old, you shouldn’t speak for more than nine minutes at a time.

“The key here is in the children being active and unearthing the learning themselves as far as possible,” Ms Grace stated.

She also stressed the importance of not putting too much pressure on them – or yourself – to get through certain amounts of work each day. Giving them plenty of encouragement is also essential.

The Evening Standard also shared some top tips for parents navigating home schooling for the first time, which included allowing children to learn at their own pace and sticking to a regular routine on the days that you’re doing school work.

If you’re looking for a way to make science lessons fun, you can find some great entertainment science on the James Boffin YouTube channel.