As parents, teachers and children come to grips with their new way of school life this week it's important to acknowledge that no family can be living the same experience right now.
Term two starts tomorrow, nearly three weeks after New Zealand went into alert level 4 lockdown in a bid to fight Covid-19. We have just over a week of that initial four-week lockdown period left, with a decision on whether it will be extended due on April 20.
Until then, there is no way of knowing how long children will be learning from home or what life after lockdown really looks like and the thought that some schools could open to some students in just a few weeks seems surreal.
Schooling will obviously be different to anything anyone has experienced from this week and we'd be silly not to expect a few teething problems along the way.
But the key thing to remember is that no family can be living the same experience during this lockdown so there can't be a blanket approach to education at this time.
Family situations are different. Some families are dealing with the stresses of uncertainty around employment, some are using the level 4 lockdown as some downtime and a chance to enjoy quality time together, some families have expanded to include grandparents and extended family members in their bubbles and some parents are doing it all alone, while working or not.
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website
But lockdown experiences go beyond the number of people in your family and the support you do or don't have. The amount of space you have in your home and outside it has to be a factor as well.
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Advertise with NZME.This is why parents can't be hard on themselves. When schooling starts they can't compare themselves to other parents or expect the same result, and they can't approach their "home school" in the same way. Each household will be different and families need to adjust to what suits them best.
And just as students and their parents are facing challenges, it's important to acknowledge that teachers and staff will be dealing with some of the same issues as the rest of us.
We can't expect them to give us the same level of engagement in a virtual environment as they would in a normal setting. Everyone's wellbeing needs to be taken into account.
This school term is an unconventional one. It will be a term of adapting - and that alone provides plenty of learning opportunities for everyone.
Learning at home is not the same as learning at school. If the biggest lesson that children and families take away from this learning from home experience is one of adjusting to a different situation, that can't be a bad thing.
