Spinning plates: Parent and Family Network coffee morning
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
The Parent and Family Network held their very first online Teams coffee morning last week on Tuesday 12 May.
The guest speaker was Professor Helen Bilton from the Institute of Education, who spoke about the challenges of managing home schooling alongside home working during lockdown. Helen gave practical tips for helping children of all ages engage in and get the most from outdoor play, provided advice on helping children transition back to school, and suggested ideas for simple games and activities to keep children entertained. Her excellent and useful talk was very well received.
More than 60 colleagues took part in the virtual event, and the Teams chat feature enabled participants to post questions and share experiences and advice. The discussion was wide-ranging and covered ways to help children approach challenges, how to get toddlers to bed at a reasonable hour, and techniques to deal with negative emotions in children.
The Network group on Teams provides a way for conversations such as these to be continued beyond the session itself.
Everyone came away with practical ideas and some much-needed reassurance that we are all trying our best in a very difficult situation, that what we are doing is enough, and that it's very important to be kind to ourselves.
The session was recorded so for anyone who missed the coffee morning or would like to listen to it again you can access it on Streams or through the Files section of the Parent and Family Network Teams group.