BookTrust Cymru Early Years Practitioner Webinars

BookTrust Cymru’s annual conferences have become a staple of the early years calendar in Wales.

The conferences focus on giving practitioners the chance to hear great speakers, attend inspiring workshops and share practical ideas for using books, stories and rhymes with children and families.

We didn’t want to miss the chance to get together this year, so we will be running a series of four FREE webinars for practitioners.

This year, we will be exploring how to use books, stories and rhymes to support the wellbeing of children and families, with a focus on the challenges we are all facing at this time. Each webinar will focus on a key theme, all chosen to support you in your work NOW.

Register here

When?

The conference will be spread across four weeks, starting 12 January 2021. Each week, you are invited to attend a webinar lasting one hour (NB The first session will be 1 hour 15 minutes). You are encouraged to come to all four sessions, but if you can’t make one of the dates then that’s okay. Each session will run twice in the same week, so you can choose when to attend.

The sessions

Session 1: Wellbeing, and supporting children and families – keynote speaker Jane Evans 

Tuesday 12 January 10.00-11.15

Thursday 14 January 13.30-14.45

Jane Evans will be our keynote speaker. Jane is an international parenting coach and expert in childhood trauma. She’ll be discussing ways in which we can support children and families through looking after our own wellbeing, including:

• How to be present in our practice
• Tips on how to prioritise wellbeing in our daily work with children and families

Session 2: Running online bilingual story sessions

Tuesday 19 January 10.00-11.00

Wednesday 20 January 13.30-14.30

Cymraeg i Blant will showcase two bilingual story sessions from this year’s Superbox books. The session will:

• Provide technical advice to support effective delivery of online sessions
• Showcase different approaches to running online sessions
• Help increase confidence in delivering bilingual sessions

Session 3: Working with babies and new parents

Wednesday 27 January 13.30-14.30

BookTrust Cymru and Denbighshire Bookstart Team discuss approaches to working with babies and the challenges we are currently facing in engaging new parents. This session explores:

• Why working with babies and their families matters
• How can we engage parents with babies, especially new parents?
• What challenges has Covid presented? And how can we respond to them?

Session 4: Superbox ideas

Monday 1 February 10.30-11.30

Wednesday 3 February 13.30-14.30

A showcase of three different approaches to using the Superbox books to support wellbeing and shared reading. The session will:

• Provide ideas and inspiration for using each of the Superbox books with families
• Explore how to use the books to support different aspects of wellbeing

Where?

Sessions will take place on Microsoft Teams.

Register here

Who?

The webinars are open to all practitioners working in the early years field in Wales. The content will focus on children aged 0-4 years. Delegates will:

• Receive inspiration and ideas from webinar sessions
• Receive Bookstart Superbox packs in the post, each containing ten copies of the current four Bookstart titles. Baby titles: Baby Play by Skye Silver and Gwenynen Bryur 123/123 Bumblebee by Natalie Marshall. Early Years titles: Octopants by Suzy Senior and Ti…/ You… by Emma Dodd

Note: We will try to give everyone a Superbox but priority is for those who can attend 3 out of 4 of the sessions if we are oversubscribed.

If you have any questions about the conferences, please email booktrustcymru@booktrust.org.uk or call 02922 676775.