Home Education Protect your child from Cyber Bullying

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 by Shelley Goffe-Caldeira Lockdown and social distancing have classmates. Bullying has largely been done control of what your children see and do increased our children’s dependency on the through private and text messaging in a online. online world. It’s been reported that 82% of ‘virtual’ environment. The applications used by schools all have parents said that their children’s screen time To coincide with Anti-Bullying Awareness tools for reporting abuse. Show your kids increased during lockdown and 30% said that Week, which runs from 11 to 15 November, it’s where to find the abuse reporting tools and their children were having an extra four hours a good time to think about how you can better how to fill in the forms. or more of non-school related screen time per protect your child from cyberbullying. Keep any evidence of inappropriate day. Prior to the pandemic parents were messages and report it to a school official ie.

Given this increase in online screen time, extremely concerned about their children’s teacher, Head Teacher or school nurse. there is no question that bullying numbers screen time and have struggled to limit this. Use your parental controls. Androids, Apple in 2020 will be higher than in previous years. The problem that has always faced parents and Windows all have built in parental controls. Cyberbullying was on the rise before lock is that they cannot always protect their These allow parents to block inappropriate down – some reports suggest that just 20% children from cyberbullying, grooming and content, control access to apps, and limit of bullying takes place at school now. But inappropriate messages online. screen time. cyberbullying incidents increased by 70% We enter an uncertain future with lockdown The UK government has published between March and April this year when restrictions likely to continue in some form guidelines online titled “Coronavirus lockdown was at its peak. The strain placed or another through the winter months. So it’s (Covid-19): support for parents and carers to on mental health caused by being confined to more important than ever for parents to find keep children safe online” which is available to the home for weeks at a time could have made positive ways to curtail the ‘pandemic effect’ view at www.gov.uk/government/publications matters worse. and limit online screen time to help avoid Another great resource is the Essential

One of the darker sides of the pandemic is cyberbullying. Guide to Bullying by Need2Know Books. Enter the rise of racial cyberbullying among children. Protecting your Child N2K1 at checkout to get a 30% discount.

Recent research has found that because Have the ‘talk.’ Open the lines of If you are concerned about a child’s mental the virus originated from Wuhan, China and communication between yourself and your welfare or notice worrying behaviour, please has been referred to as the “Chinese virus,” child. Discuss what cyberbullying is and what seek professional advice. bullying of children of Asian descent has to do when it happens. For more information and advice on increased and these children are now more Don’t be afraid to set guidelines and take cyberbullying visit: www.bullying.co.uk and likely to be victims of bullying than their www.childline.org.uk