Parents split over online learning

While praising the efforts of teachers and individual schools, some parents have called for more video learning time with teachers, as younger children struggle with online tasks.

Parents the Sunday Canberra Times spoke to also wanted more clarity about a return to face to face learning from the government.

Most ACT government schools were closed last week with parents who could not keep their children at home directed to send them to one of nine hub schools.

Australian Education Union ACT branch secretary Glenn Fowler has maintained the ACT is the best resourced jurisdiction in the country to deal with remote learning.

But he said the union was working through issues with the government after an unpredictable number of students showed up to the designated hub schools last week.

It meant some teachers had to both supervise students, and teach their own classes online.

As a result, some students have reportedly had their video classes with teachers cancelled.

Parent Damien Maher has a son in grade one at a Canberra public school and said his learning required intensive parental support.

"From a parent's perspective, the school is trying really hard," he said.

"I feel it's the system they've been handed and not adequately trained in the digital delivery."

He said a lot of the assignments were not clear, and many of the links did not work. He said his son had just one video link up throughout the week.

"If I could change things I'd want to see a face to face video hook up at least once a day for an hour and they could actually do a class," Mr Maher said.

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He said he was shocked when the Chief Minister said the ACT had the best online learning model by "a country mile".

"If we are going to keep doing remote learning, we need clarity about how long they expect it to be and include more face to face video learning," Mr Maher said.

Parents across different year levels reported differing levels of direct teacher support.

ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Association will meet this week over two days to discuss parents' concerns and views about remote learning and a potential return to the classroom.

President Kirsty McGovern-Hooley said while some parents had concerns about remote learning, she was also hearing positive feedback.

She said younger children seemed to be struggling the most with online learning.

"If you can't read and you're in preschool and kindy you need a lot more support from parents," she said.

"If you've got really young kids there's a lot more pressure on parents to engage and support."

She said parents understood the situation was fluid, but were keen to know what the future would look like.

The opposition has called for a return to classroom teaching, while supporting vulnerable teachers to work from home.

"We acknowledge and thank our teachers for their efforts in adapting to a limited online platform with such short notice and such professionalism," Opposition education spokeswoman Elizabeth Lee said

"We need to support our teachers to do what they do best, and that's to deliver quality education in the classroom.

"The prevailing medical advice throughout the pandemic, including from the ACT's Chief Health Officer, has been that our schools are safe."

On Friday, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the government was preparing for a return to face-to-face learning sometime in term two, should the "circumstances allow".

Mr Fowler said teachers would be open to returning to the classroom when other restrictions were relaxed, but did not believe it was reasonable to ask them to do so under the current conditions.

"They're being told a dinner party is not allowed but it's OK to be in a room with eight other teachers," he said.

An ACT Education Directorate spokeswoman said schools, teachers and students had done an outstanding job adjusting to a new way of working.

"However, the directorate acknowledges that it hasn't been an easy transition for parents and children," she said.

"Over the first four weeks of term two the government will take time to work with schools, P&Cs, unions and non-government schools to develop a plan to transition back to face to face education.

"Schools are prepared to deliver remote learning for the whole of term two if required, however, the government is looking at what needs to be done to be ready to transition back to face to face learning and make that as smooth as possible."