Parents / Carers
Our approach:
We are creating a virtual school based on inclusion and equity.
Parents will become ‘direct consumers’ of learning.
We recognise the challenge and the opportunity of online learning.
Quality online learning is a right not a privilege.
We expect staff to:
Keep safeguarding at the forefront of their minds
Support parents by providing appropriate learning activities and being available for support
We expect students to:
Be active drivers of their home education
Complete the learning provided for them
We expect parents to:
Support their child's learning - in a way that works for their family
Communicate with school to maintain safeguarding and positive relationships
Home learning packs to support your child to stay safe online and offline during COVID-19.
Free Infection Prevention and control course.
The Anna Freud Centre has developed a useful video to help parents during this time.
VC Keep children safe online_A4 guide.pdf
We have bought into a package of online courses from EduCare by Tes. If you would be interested in finding out more, please contact: admin@appliededucationalsolutions.com
A new online learning platform to help boost the nation’s skills while people are staying at home.
Tips for starting the difficult coronavirus conversation with your child
Start somewhere
As a parent, there are always conversations you'd prefer not to have with your children. And when something as out-of-the-blue and unknown as the coronavirus strikes, it's hard to know where to begin. Especially as it's clear that the scientists still don't have the answers.
But children need you to talk to them. They're relying on you for information and, more importantly, support.
Open the conversation as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if you don't get far. They'll know it's OK to come back to it when something worries them - when someone they know starts feeling poorly, for example.
It doesn't matter either that you don't have all the answers, as long as you reassure them that people across the world are doing amazing things - coming together, staying apart - to try to combat the virus. And you are following all the advice and doing all you can for them.
Be prepared to listen
There's information everywhere. Your children have access to the knowledge and opinions of the rest of the world via the internet. It can be difficult to distinguish truth from misinformation. Listen to what your children have picked up.
The tech platforms are making a big effort to take down false stories about coronavirus - but they can't control private messaging. So it's still possible for children to have access to information that may worry them but simply isn't true.
Of course, it's a good thing that there's so much expert knowledge available. We can all listen to different scientists and compare countries' responses, and we can see what seems to be working in real-time.
That doesn't mean you have to sift through all this and work out the answers: you'd need a degree in microbiology for that.
What children mainly want to hear from their parents is that they're on their side. Make sure they know that you and all the people who care about them are doing what they came to protect them, and look after each other.
If they think they’re not being listened to, kids turn off. So your job is mainly (at least initially) to hear what they have to say. Let them know you’re ready to engage with their opinions and concerns.
Trust yourself
As a parent, you’re one of the leading experts on your child.
Reassure them that children are much less affected by the virus than older people. They may be worried about people they know - grandparents, or people with underlying conditions. They may have asthma or other complicating conditions themselves. Make sure you know what the advice is, so you can promise them that everything is being done. Reassure them that everything will be done to protect and look after children.
Use the opportunity to start good habits of hand-washing, which will stand them in good stead long after this is all over. For younger children, you can make a game of it, singing songs while they wash.
Involve older children in planning for self-isolation. What food do you need? What films and games and activities will keep you occupied if schools have to close?
It’s easy to feel you don't know enough to be authoritative. It's fine to be honest about your own uncertainties, as long as you are calming and positive. Reassure them that this will pass, and we will all pick up the pieces - and, yes, they will have to go back to school.
You know how to be a parent – that's skill enough to be going on with.
From: parentinfo.org
10 ways to safely entertain your children at home
A few months ago, the idea that millions of people would be quarantined at home while a virus swept the globe would have sounded like a far-fetched movie plot. But here we are.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is having a massive effect on daily life for many people, with events cancelled, schools closed and people asked to work from home.
Obviously these are minor inconveniences given that people are also sick and dying, but they still pose problems, particularly for those facing the prospect of entertaining bored children at home for an extended period.
Fortunately, we can help. We’ve pulled together this extensive list of Parent Zone-approved activities that you can enjoy with your kids. And better still, some of them will even keep them safely occupied while you try to get some work done.
1. Become an Internet Legend
It’s quite possible that your child will have been sent home with a robust lesson plan, in which case it’s only the downtime you need to think about. But if their school hasn’t been able to organise that, look no further than Google’s Be Internet Legends.
Developed in partnership with Parent Zone, it’s a multifaceted programme designed to teach seven to 11-year-olds the skills they need to be safe and confident online.
There’s a downloadable family pack, stuffed with fun activities plus a link to Interland – an exciting online game which brings Be Internet Legends to life. Why not play it together – and see who can get the highest score?
2. Get creative in Minecraft
Minecraft barely needs an introduction – after all, it’s the best-selling video game of all time, a sort of Lego for the digital age in which you can create your own adventures and play any way you chose.
Despite its popularity, though, plenty of parents have yet to experience the thrill of joining their kids in this virtual world. And that’s a shame, because it’s an easy and hugely enjoyable thing to do: just create your accounts and, so long as you’re all on the same network connection, you can play together on multiple devices.
What’s more, it’s generally a safe game to leave them alone with, if you aren’t able to play alongside them. As with any online game, you need to take a few precautions – and our expert guide to Minecraft has plenty of pointers for you on that front – but it can be a wonderfully creative way for them to spend a few hours.
READ MORE: Staying safe on Minecraft
3. Get coding
The idea of learning to code can seem daunting, but there are plenty of online resources that make it easy and fun for kids – and even their technophobe parents.
Scratch is our favourite: you create programs by dragging and dropping colourful icons and following simple logic, with no need for pages of code. It's aimed at eight to 16-year-olds and is surprisingly powerful, with some users turning out amazingly advanced games on it. There’s also a simpler version, ScratchJr, for five to seven-year-olds.
Parents should be aware that there's a big social element, with users able to follow each other, comment on projects and send direct messages, but there are robust parental controls and a zero-tolerance moderation system that make it a generally safe environment for teens and tweens.
4. Spend some time in Digiworld
Developed by Telenor Group in partnership with Parent Zone, Digiworld is an interactive curriculum to help five to 16-year-olds develop digital resilience, so they can be safer online.
It’s available in 13 languages and includes a fun game plus downloadable worksheets and supporting guides to help parents, carers and teachers play and learn alongside their children.
READ MORE: Digiworld
5. Train your kids to spot fake news
The internet can be a wonderful source of information, but clearly you can’t always trust everything you read on it – particularly if it’s on social media. Children are more susceptible than most to fake news, so why not use your time at home to give them a primer?
You could talk to your kids about how a situation like coronavirus can be misreported, discuss how you go about finding the most reliable information and debate which sources are most trustworthy.
READ MORE: Fake news: a parent’s guide
6. Do some digital meet-ups
Being cooped up with your children for a week or two might be tricky at times, but being left entirely isolated from human contact is surely worse. That’s the situation potentially facing many older people during the current situation.
So, if you can’t visit grandparents, great-grandparents or other older family members and friends, why not meet up with them digitally instead?
Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Facebook and many, many other services have video-calling facilities, so give the grandparents a call and let them see a friendly face.
7. Watch some movie and TV classics
We suspect Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, iPlayer and the other streaming platforms will see plenty of traffic over the next few weeks.
Fortunately, there's plenty of great content available across the platforms – including lots that you could consider at least vaguely educational. For instance, you could sit the kids down with a David Attenborough nature documentary, or the wonderful Horrible Histories.
Every platform has parental controls, but we'd still recommend that you keep an eye on what they're watching – or better still, watch with them – because many of the filters are easy to circumvent if your child knows what they're doing. And they will do.
READ MORE: Netflix – everything you need to know about the streaming service
READ MORE: Amazon Prime parents’ guide
8. Get board not bored
Before computer games were even a twinkle in Atari’s eye, board games gave generations of children hours of entertainment – and there’s no reason why that should change now.
Scrabble, whether in Junior or full guise, is a brilliant tool for improving vocabulary and spelling, chess and draughts are good for logic and reasoning, and for younger kids even something as simple as ludo or snakes and ladders can help with numeracy.
Charades – though not a board game – can teach self-expression and creativity and if you want a fun game without any obvious educational value, we recommend the amazing Exploding Kittens (so long as you’re OK with fart jokes).
9. Cook up a lockdown feast
Most children love cooking – particularly if it involves sugar and chocolate! There are plenty of good recipe sites online, including many that are aimed specifically at kids. BBC Good Food, for instance, has an extensive section for children.
To increase the creativity, suggest your kids hunt through the cupboards and make a list of what they find; Supercook and All Recipes are just two of the sites that will let you search for recipes based on ingredients.
For maximum fun, you could give one of Roald Dahl’s famous Revolting Recipes a try. But be be warned – most of them could never be described as healthy!
10. Get some exercise
Spending a week or longer inside would leave most people a little stir-crazy, and kids in particular have lots of energy to burn off. If you’ve got a garden and the weather is good, then you’re sorted on that front – just give them a ball or a bike and let them loose. If not, you could take them to a park or playground, so long as the official advice currently allows that wherever you are.
Failing any of those options, you can at least encourage your children to get active indoors.
There are countless videos and guides to yoga and other exercises online – but you should always make sure you use a trusted source that’s specifically geared towards the right age group and monitor that they’re doing it correctly.
From: parentzone.org.uk
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