Education guide helping parents with young children during C19 crisis gets recreated into family-friendly posters

A NEW University of Chichester guide which supports families during the coronavirus pandemic has been redeveloped into a set of easy-to-read posters, following an extraordinary response across the UK.

The free booklet, Guide to Promoting Early Learning and Development at Home, helps parents and carers by providing fun and engaging home-learning opportunities. Thanks to its popularity, new posters were created with key information from the more-detailed guide in a more accessible format.

The aim is that more families – including those harder to reach – have the opportunity to read and use ideas from the guide to enjoy playful experiences that promote learning with their children. Debra Laxton is a Senior Lecturer in Education/Early Childhood Lead at the University and also editor of the original guide and posters.

She said: “I am absolutely delighted by the response to the guide. Hearing appreciation from across the country has shown how keen local authorities and early years settings are to support their communities and how parents are wanting to engage purposefully with their children at home.”

The full guide has been downloaded more than 35,000 times in the three weeks since it was made available online.

Its new poster-format explain how engaging play opportunities and meaningful interactions promote learning across the Early Years Foundation Stage areas of learning and development. Content is broken down so early years settings can choose to send posters out one at a time allowing parents and carers to take ideas and suggestions on board a little at a time without being overwhelmed.

Independent Early Years Adviser Julie Fisher, a visiting professor of Early Childhood Education at Oxford Brookes University, is author of the popular ‘Interfering or interacting’ and ‘Moving On to Key Stage 1’ texts.

“This timely booklet offers a wealth of practical, realistic and enjoyable activities for parents wanting to enrich their children’s time at home during the Coronavirus pandemic,” she said. “It will also be a tremendous resource for early years practitioners committed to supporting parents as they spend precious time with their children in these challenging circumstances.”

Anne Hudson, Early Years Team Lead with Babcock LDP, said of the booklet: “We came across your document a couple of weeks ago. We have shared it through our Early Years Facebook, Twitter, in our EYFS Newsletters, on our Devon Babcock website and recently across the whole Babcock Group in an EYFS Blog. As an Early Years team, we really like this document, it is something we would have liked to have written ourselves.”

The new posters can be downloaded for printing at www.skipforeyeducators.co.uk/booklet/covid19_familybooklet_poster.pdf.

 Find out about guide editor Debra Laxton and her work at the University of Chichester at www.chi.ac.uk/childhood.