Here Is Wonder

Life always contains an element of uncertainty but for many people the last few weeks will have aroused a strong feeling of life's ambiguity.  Our knowledge of Coronavirus - as learned through the media, government and medical service providers - understandably leads us to feel anxious; this is uncharted territory. As adults, we are not used to such levels of unpredictably and the varied responses of different countries to the virus may lead us to believe that no one really knows what they are doing. Even worse, we may think that other governments are responding appropriately whilst our own is lagging behind.   I do not know how the next couple of months will play out; there are people much smarter then me - predominantly health experts - who are working round the clock to find the best way of getting us through the coming months. As we are learning, there are many factors that n...

The other day I was invited by my children's school to take an Online Safety Course for Parents & Carers . The course, created by the National Online Safety (NOS), is made up of 23, three-six minute, videos. Each video focuses on a different area of online safety such as 'online bullying', 'pornography' and 'screen addition'. The course will likely take you somewhere between two-three hours depending on your attention span and how many cups of tea you require to sit through all the videos. Overall I found the course extremely useful with the vast majority of videos able to clearly distill the challenges of being online into steps that a parent or carer might wish to take to address them. I was particularly impressed with the non-judgemental tone of each video and each of the presenters will put you, the viewer, at ease. As a parent, and educator who works with school-age children, I found that many of the videos offered a useful reminder that children,...