Free for GRoW Parents – one to one tutoring for your children by Oxford University  students

Posted on by Liz Sewell

 

With children at home,  GRoW has partnered with a group of female oxford university  students and recent graduates to offer free tuition to your children whilst you are home-educating.

They can help with homework and school work or could just help with additional practice – for example reading with them, mental maths, practice creative writing, or just helping them to do something productive for an hour.

They can do Skype, WhatsApp calls, or just phone calls.

We will personally introduce you to your tutor, who will then be available to help you and your child. And you can be online too – to make sure all is going well

To get weekly lessons from one of our volunteers, please email tutors@belinagrow.co.uk

Home Schooling my SEN child and working from home

Posted on by heathercette

by Chantelle El Sawy, GRoW Team Member

My 2nd week in quarantine with my family and a weird and unknown time to say we are living in. I have two boys who are close in age, 7 and 9. My oldest son has autism, so his needs are different to my other son’s needs. So far what I’ve learned from my own experience when it comes to home schooling is that homeschooling my kids together can become tricky. I say this because of the different levels they are at and their different needs. 

I was starting to feel overwhelmed with trying to keep on top of schooling the boys and trying to keep a routine that suited everyone and then also attending to my own work. 

I decided to homeschool them separately one hour each and then an hour of homeschooling together on something I can continuously give them my attention on. Once I know they have done some work I can then go on to concentrate on my own work.

My son likes a routine, nothing too strict but he likes for some consistency to be there. I stressed myself a little over these past 2 weeks  to make sure he had a strict routine. My plan was to home school from 10-2pm in reality that was too much for all of us.

 I sat back and said to myself not to stress as long as I can get one thing done with them a day that was great and if I didn’t I will try again the next day. And just take my days as they come.

Even though it feels like a long list of things to do: Breakfast, homeschool, play, lunch, work, dinner, bed I must say having something that I have to do or have deadlines for is a blessing in disguise. It’s a home routine, maybe not the one we know from before but it’s something and it’s keeping me going through these times that will definitely never be forgotten.  

How am I working from home with my family there?

Posted on by heathercette
by Tosin Beckley, GRoW Team Member
Well as for my first week with the ongoing pandemic that is happening, the first thought I had was how am I going to work comfortably from home with my family there?!
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family dearly, but to actually sit and get on with my work was definitely going to be a challenge!
I wanted to try and keep up with the same routine but my 4 year old daughter always has something to tell or ask me! Bless her. Fortunately I have my younger sister and brother at hand to help her with school work and thank goodness for Joe Wicks P.E session (which I should have joined in as well – but I will one of these days) 😁
Happy to say, during this first week of isolation, I was able to get work done and I have enjoyed working from home – I can get a good view of my garden, have my meals prepared and go for a walk which is nice…. However I don” t know what I’ll be saying or how I will be feeling in the next couple of weeks ahead…..
Hope you all had a great weekend
Tosin

One week in – Surviving Lockdown

Posted on by heathercette

by Heather Ette, GRoW Team Member

So we’re a week in with the kids home from school and this is what I’m finding:

  • My children are not coping well with the lack of normal routine
  • I am not coping well with the lack of normal routine
  • My daughter’s anxiety around the virus and wondering when she will be able to go out again is becoming an issue
  • Not only do I lack the time but I also lack the ability to home school my children
  • I have developed a new appreciation for teachers who manage to teach, not just one or two, but 30, yes 30, children in a typical day!

I am not shy to admit that I am finding the stress of combining my day to day work with the expectation of home schooling hard to cope with right now.

My ASD son flatly refuses to attempt any “school work” that now needs to be completed at home.  His firm belief being that school work is done at school and home work doesn’t actually exist at all.

My ADHD daughter seems to think that day is night and night is day, currently waking up at around 5pm in the afternoon and relieving the fridge of its contents before promptly returning to her bedroom to watch TV.

My attempts at “come on you need to be doing your school work now” falls on deaf ears.  My actual understanding of the work they both need to complete and how to actually access it is a minefield of its own and so I have to admit that, so far, no school work has actually been achieved…

What has been achieved however is this:

  • I have learned how to play Pokemon Go
  • Daisy the dog has learned how to not only catch a ball but to bring it back to me to throw again – hoorah!
  • I have begun a new and enlightened journey into the realms of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda – (and its actually really good)
  • That tomorrow’s another day and it’s a chance to try again

There’s a bunch of resources out there that I know are designed to help and when I get a chance I do fully intend to look.  For example, I have been sent some great resources from CAMHS that are designed to help children who, like mine, suffer with anxiety issues – you might find these useful too https://www.camhs-resources.co.uk/

Lastly, I can be safe in the knowledge that the School Holidays are coming up at the end of this week and whilst this usually means a break from school, for my children it will be a chance to catch up on the work they have missed out on so far and an opportunity for me to delay my own worries for another week!

In the meantime, here’s some other great advice I’ve been sent giving Tips for surviving lockdown which I am happy to say I have managed to achieve 21 out of 31 so not too bad at all!  At the end of the day these are strange times for us all and we need to just keep smiling and doing the best we can!

Caring during the crisis

Posted on by heathercette

by Saeema Yusuf, GRoW Team Member

Last week people across the UK took time to “clap for carers”. Whether you think it was a real moment of appreciation or a meaningless gesture, it has at least highlighted the roles of carers during the Coronavirus crisis.

For some, the crisis has thrown them into caring for the first time, as they help keep things going for vulnerable friends and relatives. But for me and many others, we are already carers, trying to build our careers, now faced with caring during the crisis.

So I’ve been thinking about how to combine a career with GROW, caring and COVID-19. As well as being a mum to four young children.

  1. Keeping care going. In my case, the local authority has withdrawn its adult care service because of (you guessed it) Coronavirus. This was the last thing I needed! If you are affected by this situation, reach out to social services, family members, people you trust to make sure you can put an alternative in place – now is not the time to be shy of asking for help. Whether you have a personal care role or there are care arrangements in place, the aim is to keep care going.
  2. Do what you can, when you can. I’ve been thinking about how to give my relative the same quality of care and variety of experience he has been getting at adult day care. But that’s not realistic – even with the help of other family members. I’m concentrating on doing what I can when I can, making sure he knows why things have changed, and what we can do for him.
  3. Caring is also work. Negotiating with social services, keeping family members informed, planning your time, establishing goals, dealing with uncertainty – these are all things we do when we are caring, especially when caring is interrupted, as with Coronavirus. And these are all work skills we can use in our work and use to develop ourselves in our working careers.
  4. Time for myself. Even with these new demands, I try to make time to do things that I enjoy and to relax with my family.

Most of all, I’m trying to be flexible and take things as they come. The Coronavirus crisis is changing day by day, and caring and working through the crisis needs me to be as adaptable as possible, as well.

GROW is a rewarding programme to come on to and i’m glad i took the chance to come on board. It’s been amazing not only taking part in the GROW Programme but working for Grow there’s been lots of opportunities to come.

 

Lockdown Working Mums in the Age of Zoom

Posted on by Liz Sewell

Liz Sewell, Director of the GRoW Programme

Here at GRoW, I am managing a team of 11 women, my own girls are older, but between us the team has 26 children, 21 of them under eleven. So now we have home educators amongst us, as well as mums, carers, and team members. This is what we learnt in the first week:
– We all still want to work. –
Work is helping us make sense of the weirdness.
– Zoom is allowing us to have that shared time that makes work a good place to be, as well as a thing to do.
– We have agreed to start work later – to give everyone time to get the kids work done (and enjoy PE with Joe Wicks).
– We have agreed to try side by side working with the older kids, so they understand that work carries on as normal for them too.
– We are building a new team routine together so that we can find Zoom time, work time and family time to suit 12 families

Our motto is reach out for help if you need it, and offer if you have some time spare.

So solidarity to all the working, home educating, caring, sharing, supportive Mums out there – we’ve got this!

fullsizeoutput_72f4Liz Sewell FIEP is Director of the GRoW Programme and founded Belina Consulting.  She is a former Chief Executive of the lone parent Charity Gingerbread and sits on the Mayor of London Skills for Londoners Board. 

A message from our Team Member Michelle

Posted on by heathercette

Ok so we know about the C word because it’s all over the news, in the newspapers, and everywhere we go we are reminded of it due to our lives as we knew it, being changed dramatically.

Some may see it as an extra holiday, but others may be facing anxiety and stress and not coping well.

As for me, I’m still “adjusting”, myself. Still expected to homeschool while working from home in 1 job and still having to be contactable for job 2 and somehow still manage to get the supplies in with the madness at the supermarkets! It would be enough to send anyone potty! But on the contrary, I am in good spirits (at the moment)!!! When I feel myself going into the dumps – I remind myself of a few things –

1. This has never happened before in my life time and on the balance of probabilities, is unlikely to happen again in my lifetime. In that sense I am living through and making history. I mean just like we can read about the Great Plague of London in 1665, my great grandchildren will be reading about the Coronavirus of 2020.

2. Circumstances like this gives me time to focus on my priorities. In “normal” day to day living I am busy dashing around having to do multiple things and meet multiple obligations to the homes, children and work – ALL at the same time. It is a fine art and I do this well but this forced period of staying mainly within the confines of home, means I can take some much needed time to SLOW DOWN. Look at what is really important and what is nice but not so important – allowing me to spend more time on what actually means more to me. Like – more time connecting with the children, time for me to consider what it is that I want for myself and to begin working on it.

3. It is a great time to take up a hobby which in usual circumstances I don’t have the time to do.

4. What about learning a new skill? Many people are at home with children. How about doing activities together? The children will learn something too! That is my plan (when I can get to it)!!!!

5. One of the best ways to feel better is to help someone else. You may think your circumstances are terrible but there may be someone in a worse situation than you. If I can help those individuals, I help them and myself. There are neighbours and friends and family, other parents, that have welcomed any help that I’ve offered and just being in a position to give them the help that they need is a boost. If everyone has the same attitude towards other people, we can build a community where everyone is getting the support they need and in this way, we all inadvertently get what we need. There are lots of people offering support and requesting help – maybe we can all step up and take advantage of what’s on offer at the same time so we ALL benefit and get through these unusual circumstances.

REMEMBER GRoW is here to support you so reach out as and when you need. Every challenge has solutions!

Mich

Michelle Grenada-Bryan

Continuing to GRoW Your Own Business

Posted on by heathercette

Even though right now we are living through strange and difficult times, utilising any situation to the best of your ability is all we can do.

Being self-employed, my whole work life has changed, I am now having to think outside the box and think about how to fit my business into this climate, which is hard. However, it is also giving me time to be creative and come up with new unique ideas for my business that could potentially be great. I am also being forced to think of new avenues of work also, with the ‘just in case thinking’ of if my old business will ever get back to how it used to be. I am feeling positive and using my time to come up with new ideas and work on things I had left to the side as I was ‘too busy’ to get to it before. My website needs attention, my social media influence needs serious work, my finances need to get up to date, there is a lot that needs to be done when you are self – employed.

Most of us have also had to become overnight teachers, however as I have started to settle into a routine with home-schooling my son, I find he works so much better when I work alongside him. So, we are getting a schedule in place or work and play where we work together then we have down time together – eat lunch, play a board game, or go out for our walk.

When we think about starting a business, a barrier comes up that we ‘don’t have enough time’. Now most of us have a lot of it.
We now have time to put towards thinking about or building existing businesses.

As you know Belina delivers a Grow Your Own Business workshop and I would like to carry on the momentum. I am going to be setting a series of activities for those who are interested in carrying on with building towards progressing in self-employment.

We will work on new ideas – changing the way we look at our previous ideas and how they might have changed now the world is changing. Writing business plans, learning how to keep track of finances and tax returns.

I will be offering virtual 121s once a week for those who want to talk through ideas, plans and I will also like to get all of those who get involved in a collective zoom call to all interact and have a time to talk.

Please like and share this post on our Facebook page, please do get involved and keep yourself GRoWing in this time. If you wish to get involved please leave us a comment and I will be in touch. But I will be posting things for you to do. SO, look out for the first activity on Monday.

Stay safe everyone and enjoy your weekend.

Mercedes xx

Managing the transition to home schooling children with SEND and Autism

Posted on by heathercette

By Heather Ette, GRoW Team Member

Like most other children now my son is out of school amid coronavirus fears but due to his special educational needs he can’t just log in to the computer and do his schoolwork at home.  My son is autistic and at school he gets adult help in every classroom.  Without this intensive support he can’t write a paragraph without having a meltdown.

The prospect of remote home schooling serving as a replacement in the coming weeks or even months is more than a little daunting for most parents, let alone those of us who have children with SEN.  I’m not sure how I’m going to do it, or whether I am going to do it well, all I know is that I can only do the best I can!

What I’m planning to do is worry less about providing a similar level of schooling that he would receive in a typical classroom and focus more on spending this time engaging with him so that we can both enjoy it as much as we can. I’m trying to view it as an opportunity that I will never have the chance to do again and so I’m going to try to make it as fun and enjoyable as possible.

These are the 5 key points I’m going to concentrate on:

  1. Introducing a loose structure that is led by my son – if it’s his decision when he does things then he is more likely to do them! I will keep to routines such as breakfast, lunch and dinner time and we will agree a timetable for the day between us.
  2. Include ‘Bubbles’ of activity that we can do together in short bursts – 30 mins drawing, 30 mins building lego, bake a cake, spot of gardening or play a board game together.
  3. Research – I’m going to spend a bit of time each day talking to him about subjects that he finds interesting – Different breeds of dogs, Pokemon, Super Mario Brothers etc. We’re going to find out as much about them as we can, researching the subjects with him on the internet, watching youtube videos or tv programmes or reading books to find out interesting facts.
  4. Exercise – I’m going to try to encourage him to exercise for 20 mins a day with me – throwing a ball for the dog in the garden, sit ups on the floor together, playing catch, even running up and down the stairs!
  5. School work – I am going to attempt to work with him to carry out one assignment a day sent from the school, if we complete it great, if we don’t, we can try again another day.

More than anything I want to try to keep a calm home environment to keep anxiety levels low and so the important thing for me is to keep things light, try to have fun, keep my mood up, remain positive, take time out for myself and my own wellbeing, reach out to my support networks on social media groups and keep expectations low.

Remember, the GRoW Team are always here to help so if you are struggling and need some advice or support do get in touch at info@belinagrow.co.uk.  In the meantime here’s some really great advice from Dr Amelia Roberts from the UCL Centre for Inclusive Education about Managing the transition to home schooling children with SEN and Autism