News

1decision: Inspired By A Child

It has certainly been a different year for everyone across the country, and here at 1decision HQ we wanted to find as many positives as we could during this time.

During the first lockdown we focused all our energy and time to create our Early Years programme. The aim for these new sets of resources was to support schools across the country who were already using the 1decision primary programme.

We launched the new programme in September 2020 and were overjoyed to receive our first award in October in the Teach Early Years 'Happy and Healthy' category and to find that many other early settings welcomed the new support.

Following the initial success, we are now supporting hundreds of early years settings in over 40 counties!

During the most recent lockdown we wanted to review the programme and speak to early years practitioners to see how we could improve and expand our offering and help children reach more of the early learning goals.

Aside from talking to practitioners, a young child named Destyni really provided me with some unintentional inspiration. Destyni had a bit of time away from home schooling and wanted to watch TV but her Mum wanted her to read a book, so they made a compromise! A nature programme, with subtitles and no sound…. genius.

Everybody was happy! The mum was happy reading, Destyni was happy to watch the TV - it suddenly dawned on me that this was a great idea for our online storybooks. So, over the past month we have turned all our interactive flipbooks in to read-to-me books which guide children through the story word by word!

Watch a sample here:

The new Read-to-Me books reduce many vocabulary barriers, support children that speak English as an additional language and so much more. They can be played on most devices ranging from large smart screens to small tablets.

We currently have twenty stories available, looking at important subjects such as separation anxiety, learning to share, welcoming a new sibling and more, and we are also very close to launching the next twenty!

The stories are available as a part of a larger bank of resources and will soon be available for home use through our parent/carers app via Apple Store and Google Play!

It is hard for some to accept that screen time is here to stay and will potentially be the preferred way to learn for all children as we now know children are more than 70% predominantly visual learners, but we aim to reduce some of the issues caused by multiple and constant moving imagery which cause the eyes to flicker

We hope that by providing books in this may we will help reach a healthy compromise for those children that struggle to read and prefer animated content.

What is next for our resources?

Our platform already hosts many resources which include sorting and talking games, dilemma cards, timers, posters, films, books and hundreds of activities. As you read this article, the team are hard at work creating more content including an additional 40 read-to-me books and animations, phonics videos, mini yoga online classes, flash cards and so much more. We hope to be able to provide support to many more settings in the next few months!

The 1decision team are very solution focused and welcome ideas from early years practitioners. Do you have an idea for a story we could create to support your little learners? Contact us via info@1decision.co.uk

Are you an early year’s practitioner looking for more resources for your setting? The 1decison early years platform is available to try for free by clicking here!