This course is aimed at all those parents who aren’t teachers, (or zookeepers, disaster managers or Michelin starred chefs). I am here for you. Your class teacher is probably working flat out co-ordinating weeks and weeks of work for thirty-five children, if they’re a primary teacher, or upwards of 150 children, if they teach secondary. They might not have any time left to explain how on Earth you’re supposed to do this work. Not only that, but if all work could be done remotely, without a teacher’s input and guidance, we wouldn’t really need teachers at all.

This isn't a list of ideas of Pinterest-worthy activities, this is a course giving you the skills to ensure your children get the best possible education in the current lockdown. It's aimed at UK parents, but is relevant to anyone who has been emailed or mailed a big pile of work to do with their children. It also covers how to help a child get started when they've been given a task that's a one-sentence title like "do a five page project on plants".

This course shouldn't take more than an hour to complete, and if you're a fast reader, might only take thirty minutes.

You are now the teacher. You didn’t ask for this job, but you’re going to make a damn good go of it anyway. You got this. And I’m here to help you.

I’m a teacher with five years’ experience. I’ve worked in primary for two years and secondary for three. I’m also a parent who now works from home. I don’t expect you to be Mary Poppins, or that one person on Instagram whose house is tidy, twelve children are all dressed in identical white outfits and who swears she only needs two hours sleep because all her brain cells have evaporated from breastfeeding twelve children until each of them was old enough to have a mortgage. She subsists on universal chi, or possibly coke. I live off (probably too much) chocolate and cups of tea, and dinner that maybe doesn’t have enough vegetables in it. And I’m guessing you do, too.