Former Headteacher, Anne Munns, has put together a set of tips to help parents through remote and homeschooling during lockdown.
Here are her top tips for supporting your children through home learning during lockdown.
- Remember you are not a trained teacher – anything that you do will support your child’s learning. Try to stay relaxed and make the sessions enjoyable.
- Try to develop a routine. Children like it when they know what to expect.
- Children do not sit in a classroom and concentrate for hours at a time. The younger the child the shorter the sessions should be.
- Get outside every day no matter what the weather – to the park, for a walk or in the garden if you have one.
- This is a great time of year for observing nature. Listen to the birds, look out for the signs of spring – buds on trees, catkins, flowers coming up, weather, lengthening of the days. Grow seeds that can be planted out as the weather warms up.
- Read with your child and to your child. Learn poems together. Tell stories about you and your family.
- Look at old photos together – children love learning about family life.
- Play games together. Card games, board games and shared games on the x-box or similar devices – so many skills are developed through games playing.
- Do everyday tasks together. Food preparation is a great place for talk and sets children up for life, whether it’s baking, preparing vegetables or making a sandwich.
- Learn about things together. Teachers have to learn all the time when they are teaching about history, geography and other subjects – doing it together is much more fun.
- Art and craft activities do not have to be expensive. Paint, paper, glue and recycled boxes and cartons can all be used to make things. But also get children involved with clearing up afterwards. Washing up can be fun!
- Draw together. You don’t have to be a Picasso to have a go. Colouring in can also be fun.
- Don’t think your child should spend hours writing or doing maths. Mental arithmetic can be fun and learning times tables when appropriate. Little and often is better than tears and frustration.
- Most of all don’t worry. It may take time but children will catch up with their learning in time. Anything that you do will support learning when we return to some form of normality.
In addition, there are lots of great free resources available via your TV and the internet to support you through home learning.
BBC Bitesize:
The BBC has increased it’s content to support home learning during lockdown with both CBBC and BBC delivering programmes to your home in addition to their online content. TV content begins on Monday 11th January.
Website – BBC Bitesize
Jo Wicks PE:
Jo Wicks is back being the nations PE Teacher delivering 3 live sessions a week via his YouTube Channel. These new sessions will start on Monday 11th January at 9 am
Website – The Body Coach YouTube
Phonics Play:
Phonics Play is a site packed with interactive phonics games, phonics planning, assessment ideas and many teaching ideas and resources to help children to learn. They have opened up their services to be used for free during lockdown.
Website – Phonics Play
DK Find Out:
DK Find Out is full of fun learning activities for kids with videos, quizzes and galleries – they can learn about dinosaurs, space, animals, nature and more and it’s free.
Website – DK FIND OUT
Fuse School:
Secondary school Science and maths curriculums in bite-sized chunks of learning. Using animated videos covering concepts that are learned in schools by students aged 13-16 years old.
Website – FUSE SCHOOL
TED-Ed:
Hundreds of TED-Ed Animations and TED Talks that will spark your child’s curiosity. Subjects and videos are organised by age level and subject. There are interactive quizzes and discussion topics too. This is a free resource
Website – TED-Ed
