News & Views

The Wateraid collection features gorgeous organic loungewear for babies and children aged 0-12, with two legging and top sets for ages 1-12 and two babygrows for ages 0-2 years, perfect for a cosy day indoors or the comfiest night’s sleep. Two striking prints are available, including PO.P’s iconic stripes in a beautiful new limitededition sky blue and a simply dreamy cloud print.

www.polarnopyret.co.uk

Become a Host Family

EF host families play a key role in fulfilling EF’s mission of breaking down the barriers of culture, language and geography that divide us. Become a host family for international students today and be part of this great cultural exchange.

Why host with EF?

Experience the world

Few experiences can spark interest in the world like opening up your home and becoming a host family for an international student. Being a host family with EF is a unique, rewarding, fun and educational experience for all members of the family and an opportunity to create long-lasting relationships. Hosting with EF is a great way of sharing and learning differences in languages and cultures.

Exchange cultures

With EF you’ll welcome an international student into your home. You will experience true cultural exchange and demonstrate your community to the world. As a host family you become a vital part of our students’ time abroad and their experiences, helping them to gain a deeper insight into your local culture, pick up expressions with much greater ease and return home with a more authentic accent.

Showcase your hometown

By becoming a host family you give students a chance to experience maximum cultural immersion by living as locals - with locals. EF host families become the students’ home away from home, and provide a safe and comfortable environment for students to ensure they get the best experience abroad as possible. With summer fast approaching and warmer weather, it is essential that children drink plenty of water. Dehydration can be the source of a variety of health and wellness problems, from anxiety to fainting spells, and even weight gain - so why is it that 45% of Brits continue to drink only one glass of water a day?

The UK sees a soft drinks market worth £3.8 billion dominated by sugary drinks and those labelled as 'zero-calorie' are still filled with a variety of additives and sweeteners. Brits are naturally looking for healthy alternatives to these flavourful drinks in order to consume enough water without ingesting copious amounts of sugar that is detrimental to their health and hydration goals.

With 80% of flavour coming from our sense of smell, instead of taste, air up harnesses this clever bit of science, infusing every sip of water from your bottle with flavoured air, and offering Brits a healthy alternative to flavoured drinks while still drinking 100% pure water. Each pod contains natural flavourings and scents that infuse with ambient air to be added to the pure water. The flavours range from Lime and Orange-Passionfruit to Cola and Iced Coffee with ten others in between, offsetting British aversions to water and improving our sense of health and wellness in the process, truly disrupting the soft drinks sector and our consumption habits.

The Million Word Gap

Young children whose parents read them five books a day start school having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to, a new study found.

This ‘million word gap’ could help explain the differences often seen in vocabulary and reading development among young children, according to the researchers at the Ohio State University.

Even children who are read only one book a day will hear about 290,000 more words by age 5 than those who don't regularly read books with a parent or caregiver.

‘Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school and are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily’ said Jessica Logan, lead author of the study.

The study appears online in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Paediatrics

More info: www.sciencedaily.com

Free kids’ app that saves the planet

Earth Cubs is a new app for children ages 3 to 7 that educates kids about the planet and sustainability. The free app is filled with games, puzzles, quizzes and comics - all teacherwritten and approved, as well as resources for projects and outdoor activities to inspire kids to get out into nature.

Children create their Earth Cub avatar in their likeness and journey across the world, visiting different environments around the globe, such as the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic.

Each environment brings an environmental issue to life in a vibrant and positive way, empowering kids to make a real difference as they interact with the Earth Cubs world and characters. They even earn badges that plant real trees in the real world.

More info: www.earthcubs.com

Foster Care Fortnight® is back!

Foster Care Fortnight® runs from 9th to 22nd May this year and is the UK's biggest foster carer awareness raising and recruitment campaign.

Run by The Fostering Network, the campaign aims to raise the profile of fostering and to show how foster care can transform lives - both the lives of the young people who are fostered and those of foster carers and their families and friends.

Thousands of foster families are needed each year to care for a range of children, with greatest need being for foster carers for older children, sibling groups and disabled children.

Fostering is an opportunity to make a positive difference to a vulnerable child or young person, expand your skills through training and to develop lifetime relationships with generous financial incentives.

More info:www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/ get-involved/foster-care-fortnight

News & Views UK’s first wardrobe rental platform for children

Charlotte Morley launched The Little Loop in 2020 in answer to what she perceived as a major issue in the children’s clothing market - as children grow quickly, it’s often necessary to upgrade their clothes every three to six months. The Little Loop offers an alternative to frequently purchasing inexpensive, poorlycrafted clothes that are disposed of after a certain number of wears. The service provides children aged from 12 months to 10 years with a selection of highly stylish clothes that can be put back into circulation once they no longer fit.

Thelittleloop is working towards a world where children’s clothing waste is completely eradicated. In the space of a year, the brand currently saves 630 kgs of clothing waste; 13,547kgs of carbon dioxide emissions and 583,771 litres of water. Typically, thelittleloop rents out each item of clothing 4-5 times which extends their lifespan by 12 months and eliminates the production of 3-4 new garments. In summary, that’s 80% less carbon dioxide released, 80% less water wasted and 100% fewer garments ending up in landfill (as thelittleloop upcycles or recycles everything at the end of its life).

Thelittleloop process was designed with the parent in mind. The simple premise is that the customer pays for a certain number of credits per month which can be exchanged for clothes. The number of credits per garment depends on the label, the item, and the number of times it has been worn before. The subscription fee includes unlimited swaps; laundry of the clothes that are returned and insurance against stains and wear & tear.

thelittleloop.com

Smile this summer with a FREE Perform class

Summer term is here and there’s no better time for your child to try a Perform class. Packed with self-esteem boosting activities, Perform weekly classes will round off the academic year with a fun and relaxed focus on developing confidence, communication, coordination and concentration. Using a mix of drama, dance and singing, these high-energy classes for all abilities are designed to allow even the most reticent children to shine.

The curriculum has an emphasis on fun, making friends and lots of laughter plus children can enjoy bespoke apps, downloads and videos at home. Small classes ensure plenty of individual £40 DISCOUNT when booking before 31st May, just quote OX310522 attention and each child receives a progress report every 10 weeks. This term,4-7s will be bringing out the super in themselves as they become Superheroes on a mission to save the world. Meanwhile, 7-12s will enjoy red carpet glamour in Jack and the Wonderbeans.

If you think your child may benefit from Perform but are not sure if they’ll like it, you can book a free trial class at www.perform.org.uk/try.Families readers receive a special £40 discount when booking before 31st May, just quote OX310522. Oxford: Wednesdays; Abingdon: Saturdays and Thursdays; Didcot: Fridays; Wallingford: Saturdays

NEW CLASSES COMING SOON

(September 2022): Bicester: Thursdays Oxford (Ruskin Hall): Saturdays T: 020 7255 9120

www.enquiries@perform.org.uk

Confidence building weekly drama, dance and singing classes for 4-7s and 7-12s. Classes are designed to boost confidence, communication, concentration and coordination. Visit www.perform.org.uk/try to book a FREE class.