“I’M not going to get myself in a twist this time,” I declared to Him Indoors the night before home schooling started.

“Twist” seemed to me a light-hearted underplaying of the meltdown state I got into whilst home schooling during the last phase of lockdown, a period I thought of as a kind of imprisonment in in a relentless digital nightmare.

But the next morning, like clockwork, as if someone had switched my button marked “home school mode”, there I was, awake at 4am, looking at the ceiling, churning through how we were going to navigate the day, and especially the noon work Teams meeting which happened to coincide exactly with the first two video lessons for my sons, Thing 1, the teenager, and Thing 2, the primary schooler.

Here we were again, I thought. I had really believed I was going to avoid this. I had told myself that the tech was going to be better, easier to navigate, and more familiar. Most important of all I had believed that I would just let things go a bit more. It was just that my subconscious wasn’t buying it.

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A few hours later, it felt like the rest of the world was waking up.

One friend, on messenger, revealed that her router was down – it felt like glimpsing the tip of the iceberg of someone else’s little hell. At least we were online and by 8.30am, when Thing 1’s “live assembly” via laptop screen at the breakfast table went to plan, I was feeling good.

I was even able to give parents who had missed it on my Facebook Home schoolers group the full rundown on what was said. It must have looked like I was nailing home school, but really I had just been up at 4am and failing to keep my head.

It didn't take long for it to become clear that Him Indoors – I thought I’d call my husband that because he’s the one that has got the joy of being stuck in these particular four walls through lockdown with me –was taking a policy of telling me what he thought our sons needed to do, rather than telling them himself.

He revealed this was because there was currently too much tension between him and Thing 1, the teenager.

Sigh.

From there, homeschool unfolded in this kind of bumpy fashion – with Thing 1’s laptop failing to unmute in his video lessons, news out there that the government’s Glow system was failing, (fortunately not what we were using), occasional live meetings missed because the Microsoft calendar messaging was so confusing and some departments seemed to invite my son to almost every lesson they were hosting, regardless of whether he was meant to be in it.

Entertainingly, that department was Technologies.

Thing 2’s primary school offering, seemed simple and a breeze. But an unedited secondary school pupil’s Microsoft account is like a glimpse into some kind of educational and societal dystopia . I feel for any teenager having to navigate that dark place on their own. In the park, other parents, shouted at from gradually increasing metres distance, shared their experiences and tips for getting through. One advised Hortus Gin.

There were, in the early weeks, moments of optimism.

Him Indoors came up with a couple of genius ideas for navigating the day, one of them being “the walk to school”, in which after breakfast, we would take a walk round the block. I heartily approved of this given I’m an absolute believer in the importance of fresh air and exercise for family mood and sanity. But that was rapidly dropped because the idea of getting everyone dressed and out – though conceivable on a normal school day – before getting to their desks, seemed as inconceivable as scaling a Munro before breakfast.

"Desks?" You might ask. "Your kids have desks? "Well, yes, they do, but you wouldn’t really believe that given the number of times we walk into their rooms and find them lying sprawled on their beds with phones or laptops propped up on their knees.

They also believe us parents are digitally stupid and guard their devices fiercely. I have thus become digital Big Mother, snooping on all their accounts by logging onto them on my own laptop, since this seems easier than prising the machines from their dead, cold hands.

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But mostly, this round of homeschooling, brought with it all the reminders of things learned last time. Don’t expect too much. Keep your own ambitions low. Forget the promises you made to yourself or New Year resolutions and concentrate on getting your family through each hour of the day.

Now, thank goodness, a return to school is in the offing, for some kids at least, and the wonders it brings to your children – routine, companionship, structure, friendship, exercise – as well as yourself.

I love my kids. I love being with them.

But being Master of Teams in a digital home school – that, for me, is a kind of hell.