In response to appeals by various families, and a wider concern that children without access to Welsh at home will be disadvantaged in their home learning, a wide-ranging Selog Home Learning Resource was launched digitally.
In preparing the resource, it was deemed essential to cater to various domestic needs, such as families who are:
- non-Welsh-speaking and where children have been unable to continue with their education in Welsh,
- already busy because parent/s are working from home, without time to teach children and at times needing to concentrate on, eg, video calls,
- Welsh-speaking and are looking for structured resources but don’t have the time to assemble all the disparate resources from everywhere,
- already under pressure with many dependents or extra caring needs without having to also prepare learning plans.
The 12-week Learning Resource emphasises independent learning, as is expected in the Curriculum for Wales, but uses the popular Selog character as a focus to respond to children’s work. By using a range of quality free apps which can be downloaded on phones, iPads or Tablets, the resource is more accessible to a greater number of families. The resource also caters for the age range from 0 to end of Primary, enabling families with mixed ages to work to the same plan with differentiated learning.
The weekly timetable, worksheets, and motivating videos are shared on SelogAp Facebook on Sunday evenings. In addition, to encourage the children to stick to it for 12 weeks, an email or social media response to their work and weekly book prizes are included, in addition to the opportunity for ‘Clwb Selog’ members to win a Selog visit for their schools, when they re-open.
Nia Thomas, who heads Menter Iaith Môn, said:
“No child should be deprived of Welsh because of their home language background. So hopefully, by sharing the Selog Learning Resource, all families, no matter what their language backgrounds, will be empowered to share Welsh with their children at home. The Learning Resource makes extensive use of the free apps by Selog (Canu, Canu2, Llyfrau, Ioga a Symud!), and the popular Magi Ann, Bys a Bawd, Dewin a Doti, Tric a Chlic, CywTiwb and S4Clic. The Learning Resource also succeeds in combining the activities on all these apps to offer a seamless user-friendly learning programme that’s easy for all the family to follow, buying precious time for parents as well.”
Despite its focus on apps, the Selog Learning Resource also refers families to the educational and subject-specific expertise found on-line at hwb.gov.wales, as well as the signposting services on Mentrau Iaith Cymru’s Events Calendar which celebrates Welsh through learning skills, chatting or entertaining digitally.
With over 26K downloads of Selog apps, this new Learning Resource will likewise evolve on-line in response to the families’ home learning needs, with all encouraged to follow @SelogAp on Facebook and Twitter or to email selog@mentermon.com for any updates.
