Wearing a face mask, taking hand gel everywhere and Maths at the kitchen table have all become part of every day life during the pandemic.

Over the next few weeks we'll hear about the highs and lows of the virtual classroom from our secret homeschooler.

As parents, we send our children to school, they get looked after for six hours a day and what goes on during those six hours, well let's face it, we are not really sure

"So, what did you get up to today?" is the common question on the school run, "not much', is very often the reply. Well now we definitely know, because we've been attempting to teach it.

Firstly, let me introduce myself. I am a full-time working mum and before the pandemic I relied on my own parents to collect my two children from primary school every day.

My only real contact with school was talking to their class teacher twice a year at parents evening and seeing a written report at the end of the academic year.

My children, like many others, didn't ever have a parent attend an assembly or special awards presentation during the day due to work commitments.

Because of this, I have actually enjoyed spending more time with my children, which I would never have done had it not been for lockdown.

However, it hasn't always been sunshine and flowers - we have faced many challenges.

During the first lockdown I was furloughed from work which enabled me to focus all of my energy into helping the children with their learning along with doing the housework, making dinners and generally having time available for the family.

The work that was being provided by the school, however, was minimal.

For English we would get a photograph of pages in a book and were told what to teach - that was pretty much it, there were no other resources available.

I found this incredibly difficult as I have absolutely no idea how to inspire a child to write about what they can see on two pages of a book.

The maths was slightly easier as we had some worksheets that we could print and a few videos to watch to help us understand what was expected.

I became very grateful of my eldest child who was able to help the younger one understand some of the maths questions that had been set.

My youngest child's behaviour when embarking on work that required reading or writing was to say the least, bad.

They were doing everything they possibly could to avoid it or do the bare minimum - everything was a struggle and a fight.

I was becoming increasingly concerned about their attitude to learning and the strain it had put on us as a family.

I started to realise they potentially had a problem with reading as they did not progress throughout the three months we were at home.

Life was relatively normal from September through to December when schools were back, but I still saw that my youngest wasn't progressing with reading and writing as I would have expected.

Was this due to lockdown and not getting a proper education or was it a problem like dyslexia? I decided that as a family we would have to pay and get a private assessment as the school said there wasn't a problem.

We pursued this and it was confirmed my youngest does have dyslexia. It was a huge relief to know what was going on and has had a massive effect on how we have handled home learning this time around.

A major change for us as a family in this lockdown compared to the first is that both my husband and I are working full-time.

The children have understood we have a lot less time to help them with their learning, but the biggest difference is what they have been provided by the school.

They have both received daily YouTube videos of their own teacher going through the book they are reading as a class along with teaching them maths. More worksheets have also been sent home.

I have been extremely lucky that my eldest child is very self-motivated and is happy to sit at the desk, follow all the instructions on the computer screen and do all the work that she has been set.

We now know that schools won't be back until March 8 at the earliest, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it to be honest.

We are okay, we take every day as it comes and we are doing the work that is being set. If there are bad days and we can't achieve everything then I think we just have to lower our expectations.

If we can't manage to push the hoover around the house then we will just have to do it tomorrow - if we have to chuck a meal in the microwave rather than cook something from scratch then so be it.

If we try to do everything, we will go crazy. I'd like to think all parents can give themselves a break and just do the best they can.

Read more: All the latest news from Kent