School resources
We know that you want to help support your child’s learning and education as much as possible during the coronavirus school closures. To aid your child’s learning at home and to support the work that your child’s school will have set for them, we have compiled this list of useful resources for you.
BBC Bitesize
BBC Bitesize is a great resource for all the key stage areas and content is continuously updated.
Develop your child’s language and communication skills
BBC Tiny Happy People help you develop your child's communication skills. Explore our simple activities and play ideas and find out about their amazing early development.
Get Up and Go - Summer 2020
Get Up and Go is back! There are lots of family-friendly activities and games to play which will help children get their 60 minutes of exercise they need each day. You can join in Leicester’s Playday at home and if you like Britain’s Got Talent, you can take part in Leicester’s very own Get Up and Show Your Talent! The great news is everything is low cost or free of charge.
Further information including activity cards, a poster and certificate can be found on the family information website.
Activities for kids up to the age of five
Your child's brain grows the fastest during the first five years of life. As a parent, you play a huge role in feeding your child's mind and helping them to communicate. Find simple, fun activities for kids, from newborn up to the age of five.
50 things to do before you're 11¾
The National Trust has put together a '50 things to do before you're 11¾’ activity list together. Many of these activities can be adapted for the home, garden or from the window.
50 activities for kids
A list of activities that can help keep kids occupied without relying just on screen time.
Youth Music Network
Free and fun activities for those that enjoy DJ music.
Once Upon a Time, stories from Leicester Libraries
Leicester Libraries are hosting a series of online storytelling sessions to help parent and families during the Coronavirus lockdown. Two new stories will be available every Wednesday, one for younger and one for older children, via the city council’s YouTube account.
- The Wide Mouthed Frog: a story for younger children told by Matthew Vaughan
- The Magic Paintbrush: a story for older children told by Hema Acharya
- Our New Once Upon a Time Summer season playlist
- Once Upon a Time Season 1 playlist – 24 stories
Join the Silly Squad - Summer Reading Challenge 2020
Take part in The Reading Agency’s free digital Summer Reading Challenge 2020! Celebrate funny books, happiness and laughter and join the Silly Squad, an adventurous team of animals who love to have a laugh and get stuck into all sorts of funny books! Suitable for ages 4-11 years.
The Wildlife Trust - Go wild activity packs
Discover more about nature close to home, right here in Leicester, with Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust Go Wild activity packs.
Aimed at 2 – 12 year olds, the free packs include themed wildlife exploring activities, nature inspired crafts, wildlife spotter sheets to get you and your family outdoors in your garden, Local City Park or green space.
The Spark Arts - At Home
The Spark team have been busy working from their homes to bring you a collection of creative resources and imaginative activities for families at home and schools. We hope you enjoy jamming, making, listening to new stories or taking a creative challenge.
Stories from Home
Every Wednesday throughout May and June Spark Arts will be releasing a brand new short story. Created by storytellers in their homes we hope our stories will feed the imagination and encourage you to find the extra-ordinary in the ordinary, and dream endlessly of what can happen at home.
Creative learning toolkit
This resource has been put together to help guide you and your children through some high quality creative learning activities to enable you to explore, experiment and enjoy some artistic adventures together at home or in the classroom. The activities are best suited to children from Reception through to KS2 (ages 4-11).
National Space Centre
Let us bring the National Space Centre to you in the comfort of your home with a number of educational videos for you and the family to learn about the wonders of space.
Active Leicester
Its really important to keep children active during this time as well. Active Leicester has some great ideas on their Facebook channel.
Yoga sessions for your wellbeing
Krishna Avanti Primary School are hosting free online yoga classes, Monday-Saturday, 10am-10:30am on YouTube, open to all! The classes are designed for people of all abilities and are live and recorded so can be accessed any time.
Free daily PE session
Fitness coach Joe Wicks provides free online PE sessions, every weekday morning from 9am.
Boogie Beebies
Videos that get younger children up and dancing with CBeebies presenters.
Homework help resources
Find a list of useful resources on our library page
Things to do Indoors - Roald Dahl
Draw your favourite characters, get experimental at home or settle down with a story with the added support of British Sign Language.
Quaranteen’s – a young person’s guide to living in lockdown
As a response to the covid-19 pandemic and the country living in lockdown, we realise that care leavers are some of the hardest hit in terms of social isolation and financial hardship. The City’s Young People’s Council and Care Experienced Consultants have created ‘Quaranteen’s’ a social media campaign to support young people living through lockdown.
Supporting children and young people’s emotional wellbeing
This advice is for parents/carers and education staff to help them support children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and resilience during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This has been produced by the City Psychology Service.
Family workshop - learning about money
We've teamed up with Young Enterprise to develop a set of resources to support a 90-minute workshop, designed to help families explore money learning at home.