Drawing the line between education and entertainment can be difficult, especially if your children are at home for an extended period of time unexpectedly. We’ve got plenty of tips on how you can use the family television to help you to keep your children stimulated during their time away from school.
What Is the Department of Education Doing?
The official department of education and the BBC are joining forces to keep Britain’s youth thinking productively during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hope is that our national television services can provide support during these trying times, and the result is six, twenty-minute long episodes every weekday, each aimed towards a different age range between five and fourteen years old.
These bitesize episodes will be available on red button services, as well as iPlayer – which is free to use for anyone with an appropriate TV licence. If you were already considering upgrading your television, this might be the time to think about investing in a cheap smart TV. Our smart TVs come with a range of apps pre-installed for your benefit, and this usually includes BBC iPlayer. The new educational programs will run for fourteen weeks, starting on the 20th April.
As well as television, the BBC will also be offering a wealth of educational content on their website. This will include podcasts, quizzes and worksheets for core subjects. GCSE and A-Level students should go to BBC Four on weekday evenings between 7pm and 9pm to engage with programming that is most likely to link to their syllabus. These older students can expect a range of documentaries and performances that will contain links to national syllabuses and will provide a brilliant opportunity for these students to engage in some lighter evening studies with the aid of a television.
How Can Parents Help?
As a parent, you may choose to engage in some co-watching with your child to help them to make the most of these educational benefits. For younger children, it may be necessary to help them to maintain their focus whilst they are at home, but the greatest problem these children face is that they will be unable to confront a teacher when they need help solving a problem. If possible, you could help them by co-watching and making sure that they know they can come to you for academic guidance.
For older students, this might not be possible – especially if they’re studying something that you aren’t familiar with. Co-watching can still help these students to maintain focus, and it could even bring you closer together. Talk about what you’ve learnt from the programs you watch together, and if there is something that you don’t understand or recognise, try to ask your child if they can explain it to you. Getting them to explain it to someone else will help them to recognise how much they know about the topic, and your own questions might prompt them to think about their studies in new ways.
In summary, it doesn’t matter how old your children are – discussion is always important in academia so a little bit of co-watching can go a long way in helping your child during this trying time. If you work during the day, then perhaps you could encourage your child to watch these programs with their friends over Skype call. This could lead to some distraction, but it is important for your family to maintain good mental health as well as their studies or work, so giving them time to connect and be sociable online with people their own age could make the lockdown much easier for them to handle.
Keeping Fit
A cheap TV can even help you to keep fit indoors. Smart TVs often come with the YouTube app pre-installed, and there are plenty of fitness tutorials and exercise videos that you can use to keep up your exercise without endangering yourself or others. Engaging in family exercise can be another fun way to bond, as well as an efficient way to relieve stress.
Remember – if your family is working from home, they likely won’t be getting the same exercise from their daily commute. This means that it is important to stay active and to remind them to be careful about snacking.
As well as YouTube which is free, there are plenty of other fitness and entertainment apps available on the app store when you buy a smart TV. Finding the exercise program that works for you has never been easier!
Thanks for TV
Our nation’s televisions have been integral in providing communication about large-scale events. Right now, our televisions are helping to unify the nation behind measures such as the lockdown and supporting the NHS, but your television can also work for you on a personal level – bringing entertainment, education and fitness to your home.
We offer cheap LED TVs on our website available for delivery. If you need a new TV quickly, visit our online store for great deals. You can find out more about delivery process on our How to Buy page.
