Families Education
Lockdown Again? Education Hints And Tips
Angela Fairs, Director, Full Circle Educational Consultancy
Challenging Times
In these challenging times it is difficult to know what to do as a parent to best support your children and their learning. As the Head of a school at the time of Covid school closures, I can safely say things have never been more challenging for schools, parents and pupils! Hopefully, the simple hints and tips below, will help should a lockdown of schools happen again.
The learning space
Try and find a designated space at home for your child’s learning. Identify a practical area in your home which your child can use purely for learning and is separate from where they eat, sleep and socialise. This doesn’t need to be a separate room, but a designated area is key. This space should have a flat, hard surface for them to work on, be as quiet as possible, have good lighting and without any obvious distractions. Encourage your child to see the difference between a ‘chill’ space and a ‘learning’ space. For example, if your child typically does their study in the kitchen, ensure that another area is study free so they can take a break.
The tools for the job
It’s vital with any online learning, they have a laptop or tablet, and internet that is robust and healthy! Remind your child to keep it fully charged and updated. Even if they are online, having access to pens, paper and other standard school equipment is equally important for their offline study. Try and run your child’s day like a normal school day as far as possible.
A daily routine
To aid your child’s focus, try to develop a daily routine and stick to this as consistently as possible. Approach each day as you would a normal school day. Think about: setting meal times and providing healthy
choices to fuel your child for the day, allocating time for exercise or movement (as much as can in the space that you have), and sticking to usual ‘school hours’ to guide the balance between study and relaxation time. Most schools will not timetable all day in front of the computer, so try and organise some off screen time too! Help where you can to ensure that your child is involved in projects set for them and encourage them to be as engaged with the task as possible.
The social side
Being away from their friends could be challenging. It is important to make time for your child to speak with their friends, exactly as they would at school or in the evening. This could be anything from a phone call, connecting on social media or using your school’s preferred platform for instant messaging. Whilst using social media can be a distraction during school hours, it may help to provide a much-needed feeling of normality during relaxation time.
The supportive parent
Give them a little space to solve things themselves, sometimes that’s all they need • Do offer help – but don’t be overkeen! • If they are struggling with something suggest they try something different, or suggest they take a break • Get them up and moving frequently! • Hopefully these times will pass quickly and we will all be a little wiser and educated! Angela Fairs is Director of Full Circle Educational Consultancy, based in Goring, and providing strategic educational consultancy to schools and families, with a particular focus on online provision. www.fullcircle-education.co.uk
Protecting your Child from Cyberbullying Lockdown and social distancing have increased our children’s dependency on the online world. It’s been reported that 82% of parents said that their children’s screen time increased during lockdown and 30% said that their children were having an extra four hours or more of non-school related screen time per day. Given this increase in online screen time, there is no question that bullying numbers in 2020 will be higher than in previous years. Cyberbullying was on the rise before lock down – some reports suggest that just 20% of bullying takes place at school now. But cyberbullying incidents increased by 70% between March and April this year when lockdown was at its peak. The strain placed on mental health caused by being confined to the home for weeks at a time could have made matters worse. One of the darker sides of the pandemic is the rise of racial cyberbullying among children. Recent research has found that because the virus originated from Wuhan, China and has been referred to as the “Chinese virus,” bullying of children of Asian descent has increased and these children are now more likely to be victims of bullying than their 12 Families Cambridgeshire
classmates. Bullying has largely been done through private and text messaging in a ‘virtual’ environment. To coincide with Anti-Bullying Awareness Week, which runs from 11 to 15 November, it’s a good time to think about how you can better protect your child from cyberbullying. Prior to the pandemic parents were extremely concerned about their children’s screen time and have struggled to limit this. The problem that has always faced parents is that they cannot always protect their children from cyberbullying, grooming and inappropriate messages online. We enter an uncertain future with lockdown restrictions likely to continue in some form or another through the winter months. So it’s more important than ever for parents to find positive ways to curtail the ‘pandemic effect’ and limit online screen time to help avoid cyberbullying.
Protecting your Child
Have the ‘talk.’ Open the lines of communication between yourself and your child. Discuss what cyberbullying is and what to do when it happens. Don’t be afraid to set guidelines and take
by Shelley Goffe-Caldeira control of what your children see and do online. The applications used by schools all have tools for reporting abuse. Show your kids where to find the abuse reporting tools and how to fill in the forms. Keep any evidence of inappropriate messages and report it to a school official ie. teacher, Head Teacher or school nurse. Use your parental controls. Androids, Apple and Windows all have built in parental controls. These allow parents to block inappropriate content, control access to apps, and limit screen time. The UK government has published guidelines online titled “Coronavirus (Covid-19): support for parents and carers to keep children safe online” which is available to view at www.gov.uk/government/publications Another great resource is the Essential Guide to Bullying by Need2Know Books. Enter N2K1 at checkout to get a 30% discount. If you are concerned about a child’s mental welfare or notice worrying behaviour, please seek professional advice. For more information and advice on cyberbullying visit: www.bullying.co.uk and www.childline.org.uk familiesonline.co.uk
