Words by Smiley Team
Epic Tales – a social enterprise working to entertain and inspire people of all ages since 2007 - has created a new online programme to support teachers and parents as they homeschool their children during the pandemic.
Every Monday at 9:30am, Epic Tales releases a new and free folk tale – as online videos, PDFs, and a podcast – plus bonus resources to enhance the story-led learning experience. For each of the resources, there are two videos using more or less complex language to help children grow their literacy skills. There is also an ‘Epic Challenge’ which if attempted covers an entire week’s literacy topics.
Chip Colquhoun, executive director of Epic Tales tells us ‘stories are by far and large the easiest way to explain concepts especially when it comes to emotional literacy as well. The first videos we did for this project in fact were designed to help children cope with things like being in isolation, understanding infection and the need for moderation which are difficult things to draw. Stories are the easiest way to show this because you can externalise a safe environment with pirates and mermaids and all sorts of fantastical elements that provide a springboard.
Each of the stories are linked to a wide range of subjects and topics in the National Curriculum, and activities are suggested by teachers themselves in the podcast. Through story-telling, children are engaged in all sorts of areas including Numeracy, science, DT, History, PE, and so much more.
In part the initiative was set up in response to parents telling Epic Tales how much they were struggling. Chip tells us that parents are struggling not just with the lockdown but the prescriptive tasks some schools have set that aren’t accessible for some families. ‘Some parents have told us that they do not know where to turn. They have their own work, they are working from home and now they are struggling with this new role.’
The videos are designed so that parents can set the task up for children and then they can carry on on their own and gradually pick up learning as they go.
This also improves the wellbeing of the children, who do not have to feel ashamed for not completing prescribed tasks. ‘Children can’t really escape it and the parents can’t escape it because education and home life are now combined. They are struggling over these exercises and then they are still supposed to do daily life outside of school time with feelings of embarrassment or shame’.
‘The more relaxed education can be made, the more fun it can be, that is going to be educational for everyone’.
Resources can be found at https://www.epictales.co.uk/ and schools, teachers and parents are encouraged to check out the resources which are available.
By Ellen Jones
