ANITA Piggott is an outgoing social butterfly.
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The seven-year-old's parents are frontline and essential workers committed to serving the public - her dad is pharmacist Anthony Piggott and her mum is GP Dr Wendy Bridges - and so she spends half the week at New Lambton Public School and the other half learning at home.
"She's fine, but having her at home all the time does mean the colour of her life disappears when it's just at home," Mr Piggott said about his daughter, who is in year two.
"She does need social interaction with other kids, otherwise it's always with an adult, which is fine, there's enough to do, but she does really love playing with other kids.
"She's a confident social little girl and she loves interacting with people, so when she's just at home with one person it's fine for a while, but then gets a bit monotonous and boring."
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As the Hunter prepares for its fifth full week of remote learning, Mr Piggott said he and Dr Bridges - they are amicably separated - had developed a system that worked for their family.
The needs of their workplaces and size and urgency of their workloads, as well as the number of cases in the community, determine which days Anita attends school and which days she learns from home.
"If it's risky to send our daughter to school then one of us will need to take the day off work and homeschool Anita," he said.
"If there's more COVID going between the schools - like there were some bad days in Newcastle - we would not send her to school and keep her at one of our homes and do that and organise another staff member to replace me at work...I think this is going to keep going for a while, so if we have to keep her out of school until the end of the year, then that's just what we have do."
He said they were fortunate they had flexibility and colleagues able to help in their workplaces, as well as his fully vaccinated parents living nearby to assist with caregiving.
But there have been complications, with Mr Piggott recently having to spend nine days in isolation after being a close contact of a case and Dr Bridges juggling telehealth appointments with patients and remote learning on her own.
Mr Piggott said Anita's age meant helping her with school work and related outdoor activities took up most of the day, but he relished spending time together and gaining more of an insight into what she's learning.
"If we had two or three kids I can imagine it would be a real handful for any parent, especially if you had to share devices," he said.
"Being seven years old she does need a fair bit of supervision just to keep moving on to the next task rather than being distracted.
"If I have her on a task she can do that while I make phone calls, emails, so whenever I get a chance I can always step to the side and do those tasks, while still concentrating on her and making her the first priority and then in my time around that I catch up.
"She can still do her mathletics or her reading by herself for half an hour comfortably."
He said he had been impressed by how quickly the school had transitioned to remote learning and made both physical workbooks and online resources available.
Mr Piggott, a self-described optimist, said he was not concerned about how this period of remote learning would affect his daughter, who he said tried to complete her schoolwork as fast as possible so she could get back to playing with Lego or indulging in her love of arts and crafts.
"This will be a period of time which we'll all look back on as being strange, but luckily at seven years old this is not going to be life changing for her," he said.
"It'll be a period of her life, but she's not doing her HSC. She'll catch up in life, whether she falls behind a little bit now or stays on par with her learning curricular, I'm sure she'll be fine - as long as her spirits are up and she's well adjusted then it will be okay.
"I'm not too concerned about how it will impact her school career. I'll do what I can but if we don't get all our tasks done or school activities during the day, I am not going to lose sleep over it.
"Her spirits are going to be more important.
"We do what we can without being too stressed over it. She's supported with lots of love around her from all the family, so as long as she's content and that [community] anxiety does not cross over to her, that's fine."
He said many people would be doing it tough and facing mental health challenges during lockdown and after the past 18 months.
"I think it's important to acknowledge there are a lot of pressures out there and please, if anyone is struggling, put your hand up and let somebody know."
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