Tag: lockdown learning

From classroom to the living room

The five best mobile apps to help parents with home schooling

 With a stark rise in the amount of time kids are now spending at home with the national lockdown, many parents are feeling the strain of having to play teacher whilst balancing their work life.  

To help parents swat up on subjects they might have forgotten from their school days, or give their children easy-to-access educational resources, online smartphone retailer, e2save, has curated the best educational apps you can start using in seconds.  


  1. BBC Bit    esize (available for iOS, Android) 

The popular GCSE BBC learning tool is packed full of resources across a large variety of core subjects within the school curriculum. With a variety of learning methods, such as flashcards and videos, there’s plenty to keep children engaged in their studies and the interface is easy to navigate on mobile or tablet.

By using this free app, you have all the exam specific learning material available at your fingertips, with exam level interactive quizzes to help parents keep their year 10 and 11 students on track whilst they’re unable to attend school.  


  1. Photomath     (available for iOS, Android) 

Maths is often the Achilles heel of students and adults alike, especially when it comes to getting your head around complex equations and theory. To aid any parent struggling to help their children with maths lessons or homework, the simple to use Photomath app is free and allows you to scan in live images of your maths problems using your phone camera to help solve them. 

The app comes with a step-by-step tutorial of how to upload the images and then offers a number of logical solutions for the maths problem for you to work through. Whether it’s addition and subtraction, multiplication, fractions or even trigonometry, this app will help you find easy to understand solutions for maths at every level, and understand the theory behind it, with no internet access or data usage required. 


  1. Duolingo     (available for iOS, Android) 

Learning a new language is difficult enough, but without the help of teachers and official learning material, the process becomes much harder for parents to replicate at home. Duolingo is a free app that allows students access to bite sized lessons to practice speaking, reading and writing in more than 35 languages. 

Duolingo is suitable for any ability, starting from as young as primary school age, right through to teaching adults for business and travel purposes. The app allows you to log and track your progress each session, making organising learning around other subjects effortless.  


  1. TED-ed     (available for iOS, Android) 

TED-ed has been developed to allow educators and teachers around the world to submit succinct, easy to follow lessons on virtually any subject at the touch of a button. All videos uploaded have been refined to make sure they are less than 10 minutes long and are combined with high quality, fun animations to ensure children are kept engaged throughout. 

This app is available for free and parents can use it to replicate virtual lessons on subjects and specific topics. If your child is struggling with a particular problem in English for example, which you may not be equipped to solve, you can find the solution on TED-ed, providing a virtual teacher in the absence of the classroom environment.  


  1. Epic!     (available for iOS, Android) 

Epic! gives you access to a digital library of 40,000 high quality e-books and audiobooks, as well as learning videos and interactive quizzes suitable for children as young as nursery level, right through to start of secondary school. 

The app is designed to be as easy to navigate as possible, allowing parents to set their children up with easy access to their favourite stories and new books to help them develop their reading and literacy skills. Epic! also hands out progress badges to keep children engaged and excited to read. The app is free for school teachers and librarians but will be free on a one-month trial for parents too, paying just £5.85 a month thereafter.  

Karl Middleton, mobile expert at e2save, commented: “Schools being closed nationwide has resulted in many parents having to balance working from home with their children’s studies, which can be an incredibly stressful time. 

“While parents may have studied many of the subjects their children do whilst they were at school, being suddenly relied on to help with maths, English literature or even modern languages can be a daunting prospect. 

“However, these handy apps are readily available for anyone with access to a smartphone or tablet and will certainly be a real help to parents to organise and support their children’s studies, creating a virtual classroom at home in lockdown.”  


All these apps are available to download on the latest smartphones. Find great SIM-free and contract deals right here at e2save.com. 

Gie’s a hand … on Burns Night

Here’s a hand, my trusty fiere and gie’s a hand o’ thine …

What would Rabbie Burns have made of our digital age? He would probably have loved it. He was a philosopher and a rebel and as a man of humble origins living during the Enlightenment, he would surely have dived right in.

So as we celebrate the birth of our national poet let’s celebrate our digital age as well. We’d like to ask you to “gie’s a hand” in our digital appeal.

DIGITAL RESOURCES APPEAL

Home learning can be an issue for those who do not have access to technology, especially during the unprecedented times we are all living through.

Can you help make significant change in your community?

If you have a laptop, mobile, tablet or any other device that could help us in our mission to help people, we would love to hear from you!

Many local schools are struggling to support families with home learning and children within our community are the future and our hope. They are our next generation of essential workers: doctors, teachers, politicians, engineers, and retail workers.

Victoria Primary School would be grateful for at least ten additional devices to help tackle these issues and to make sure those in disadvantaged situations are not punished long-term for a situation that is not their fault.

We will arrange safe collection of devices and have them cleaned and refurbished if necessary. After which, the school will distribute accordingly.

As you will understand, due to the current situation, we need to act as soon as possible.

If you can assist, we wholeheartedly appreciate any help you can provide at this time.

So “gies’ a hand”, and as you celebrate Rabbie Burns’ birthday, remember to play and watch our online Heart of Newhaven choir sing Auld Lang Syne.

https://youtu.be/yO6XITf5-kk
DIGITAL RESOURCES APPEAL