While most in Canberra thought learning from home would be confined just to 2020, the latest outbreak of Covid in the ACT has forced students back online to get their education.
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Public schools are set to resume lessons online on Friday, but for Catholic and independent school students, learning from home has already been part of the lockdown routine.
Juggling the workloads and schooling of four children at three different schools may be a challenge, but Griffith resident Jenny Tiffen said learning from home has been a smoother operation the second time around.
"Everyone knows what they're doing and the parents and kids also seem to know what to do as well and the schools have been all well prepared," Ms Tiffen said.
"Even the though the ACT lockdown felt shocking, when you saw the situation in NSW, you could feel it was only a matter of time before it was learning from home again."
Ms Tiffen's eldest - 14-year-old Bridie - attends St Clare's College, while 13-year-old Chase is in year 7 at St Edmund's, with Mila, 9, and Daisy, 8, attending St Bede's Primary School.
Since the first lockdown, the family made sure that each child had their own work station, rather than all having to crowd around the same kitchen table. Ms Tiffen said it's been a decision that has paid off dividends.
"If we didn't have that, we would be a lot more stressed out, so they all have their own desks," she said.
"The schools have been doing things well and we've been having meetings with teachers every day and the kids have been able to get into a routine.
"The kids now know this time around how to dial into classes and things like that, everything has been a lot smoother."
While the transition has been an orderly one, Ms Tiffen said learning from home with four children in the house still has its challenges, particularly with each child doing different subjects at the same time.
"It is hard going from one subject to another and it can be hard to divide time up," she said. "All the teachers have been very flexible, and there is the sense that work might ramp up as the lockdown goes on, but most of the schools have online platforms already in place."
Learning from home has been a crowded affair at Julie O'Meara's house in Kaleen, with eight of her 12 children doing online learning.
Seven of her children normally attend Emmaus Christian School, while another is in year 12 at UC Senior Secondary College Lake Ginninderra.
Ms O'Meara said the adjustment to online learning had been relatively easy, with the family already having undertaken home schooling before moving to Canberra.
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"Having a large family is kind of a mini-school anyway, and so the kids have adapted quite well," she said. "Having one child in kindergarten while learning from home is hard, because you have to do a lot more work with them and it can be time consuming, and it's tricky when you're trying to look after them and other children as well and do school work.
"This time, it was a lot better prepared and the first day after the lockdown was pretty smooth, although it was just as noisy as a classroom at home."
As part of learning from home, she said there has been daily meetings with teachers. While there has been plenty of coursework as part of the learning, there has also been lots of physical activities as well.
"A lot of it has been teacher led. In one instance, my daughter had to find 10 different objects around the house and take photos of them, and there have been some experiments as well," Ms O'Meara said.
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