Survey Reveals Parents Are Being Homeschooled As Much As Their Kids

Since nationwide school closures were announced in March, parents all over the country have been forced to brush up on their school smarts and help tutor their kids. Now, a survey of over 1,000 UK parents, combined with analysis of Google search trends, reveals all about the lockdown homeschooling experience.

Commissioned by Clarks, the survey found that the most enjoyable subjects for parents to teach are maths (49%), English (43%), history (27%), science (26%), and art (25%). Despite being deemed enjoyable, some of these subjects have also been challenging. Nearly a third of those surveyed said maths has been the most difficult to teach, followed by English (17%), science (15%), foreign languages (12%), history (7%) and I.T. (7%).

To get help with homeschooling, over half (52%) of the nation’s parents turn to Google. Those in Brighton rely on search engines the most (82%). In fact, it’s the most commonly used homeschooling tool for parents across the UK, except for those in Sheffield, Southampton and Newcastle; parents here would rather go straight to BBC Bitesize or similar online education resources.

Virtual lessons held by celebrities have also been popular – whether it’s P.E. with Joe Wicks or David Attenborough’s geography classes, nearly a quarter (24%) of UK parents cited this as a homeschooling resource. Looking at who is adopting this new format for learning, a quarter of women teaching their kids have claimed to be tuning in, compared to only a fifth of men. It was also found that parents aged 25-34 use them more than any other age group.

Analysis of Google search data shows that searches around geography have increased by 398% on average since April 2019. The average search volume for other subjects has also soared, including maths (299%), history (269%), English (264%) and science (252%). These are the cities where people have been searching for help the most across these five subjects:

With 49,500 searches a month, ‘how to work out percentages‘ is the most common maths question parents look for answers to online. But it’s ‘what is a factor in maths‘ that has seen the biggest spike in maths-related searches by far, with a huge 2,485% increase compared to April 2019. In English, ‘what is a verb‘ is searched for 40,500 times a month – an increase of 334%. ‘How many bones in the human body‘ is the science question which has seen a 914% surge in Google searches since April last year, with those in Liverpool searching for this the most. In geography, ‘what is photosynthesis‘ may only have a monthly search volume of 6,600, but this is a 224% increase on April 2019. Whilst in history, ‘who discovered penicillin‘ has leapt 503% in the same period.

These search spikes correlate with what respondents said about topics they’ve learnt (or re-learnt) since homeschooling their kids. In English, a quarter of parents reported learning what verbs, nouns, pronouns and adjectives are, and in maths, 23% said they’ve learnt how to work with fractions and decimals. Around 1 in 7 said they’ve learnt the basics for introducing themselves and asking questions in a foreign language.

When asked how easy or difficult it has been to find the answers needed to help with homeschooling, parents across the country have a varied experience. In Liverpool, 6% say it’s been impossible to find the information or help they need – that’s more than anywhere else in the UK. At the other end of the scale are parents in Plymouth, where 36% say it has been very easy to find exactly what they’re looking for almost immediately (compared to 17% of the UK who said the same). Parents of kids aged 15-18 say they had the most difficulty overall with finding the information they needed to help teach their kids at home, suggesting that learning materials for GCSE and A-Level students are scarce.