The winner:
At Classroom Secrets we provide high quality, affordable teaching resources that children love and teachers trust. Our mission is to help our customers achieve a LIFE/work balance by providing outstanding differentiated resources and excellent customer support. Our 'FREE Home Learning Pack for EYFS' includes a range of practical activities for Maths and Phonics. It also includes a range of engaging worksheets covering sequencing, patterns and counting. A list of key information for Phonics is also included to support parents in developing their child's reading.
The shortlisted authors:
This pandemic has proven itself to be one of the most unsettling events in our children’s lives so far, and also one the most stressful periods faced by colleagues. By uploading it (home learning resource) I felt, in some small way, like I was doing my bit to help students’ manage the disruption to their learning and aid colleagues who had to provide quality resources with often very little notice. Over a year on, I am beyond elated and astonished that it has helped so many students and colleagues across the globe.
I am Frederika Roberts, the founder and lead trainer for Educate to Flourish CIC. I created this resource at the beginning of the first lockdown in 2020 as I wanted to get a simple and practical resource out there as quickly as possible to help teachers and parents support children's wellbeing through the pandemic. I am delighted and honoured that it has been downloaded so many times, as it means it could literally have helped and be helping hundreds of thousands of children!
We wanted to go one step further and design and produce several free home learning packs for Transition/PSHE, History and Citizenship to offer additional support to students who may not have access to online resources and to teachers who needed to be able to quickly assemble and print packs of resources to send out to students. We believe our home learning transition pack was particularly popular with teachers because it included over 30+ pages of engaging and fun activities but also it offered support and top tips for looking after wellbeing whilst off school.
During the lockdown and school closures, we realised the need for free home learning materials for not only schools and teachers but parents too. It was due to this we decided to create easy-to-follow home learning packs, complete with guidance, in addition to our free weekly teaching slides.
We are thrilled to have been able to help such a vast amount during these difficult times and have really enjoyed seeing our resources used for both digital and paper-based learning.
I'm Alison Goddard, a year one teacher from Shropshire. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have wanted to try and help as many people as I could. I have always had a passion for creating my own, unique resources that can be used to encourage and promote learning. I wanted to create resources which were appealing, appropriate and beneficial for children and parents during these very stressful times. I am overwhelmed by the support I have received. It means the world to me that I have been able to reach and help so many people!