View our family learning courses
The Buckinghamshire Family Learning team run a variety of free courses for parents and carers of children across Buckinghamshire:
- online courses (five to six weeks)
- workshops (two hours)
We design our courses to help parents understand how they can best support their children throughout their early years and at school.
Our courses are fun and practical, and parents who attend a course often choose to come to more.
We also encourage and support parents and carers on our courses to develop their own skills. This may be returning to learning or boosting skills in preparation for going back to work. We aim to help you feel ready to take the next step to achieve your goals.
Courses for school-aged children are for parents only. Early years courses can include parents and children (aged between 2 and 4 years), as well as parents only.
How to book onto our courses:
- via our online booking, just search for the course you would like to attend
- call student enquires on 01296 382 403
Early years courses
We offer a range of early years courses and workshops for parents and their children up to the age of five years.
A five-week course for parents and carers with a child aged 2 to 4 years.
Explore how stories and sensory play help speech and language development.
Each week you will look at a different story and explore ideas, play and games that you can do with your child to increase their language skills and develop their sensory experiences.
A five-week course is for parents and carers with a child aged 2 to 4 years.
Explore how play aids development and support your child with fun activities to support early fine motor skills. Fine motor skills support muscles for play with small items (bricks), drawing and learning independence skills such as doing up your own coat.
Each week you will look at different activities and explore ideas, toys and games that you can play together.
A one-week workshop that will give you fun and practical ideas for your child to be ready to take their next steps into reception class at school.
You will look at stories, independent activities and routines to support your child to help them settle into school life.
A five-week course for parents and carers with a child aged 2 to 4 years.
Each week we will give you fun and practical ideas to build your child’s confidence and wellbeing through sharing stories and simple activities together at home.
A five-week course for parents and carers with a child aged 2 to 4 years.
Each week we explore fun and practical ideas to encourage your child to enjoy a healthy diet and lots of fun activities to keep them happy and active indoors and out.
You will learn, with your child, how to support them with their emotional wellbeing and self-care.
Primary schools courses
We offer a range of courses:
- English
- maths
- science
- how to support your child’s wellbeing
- internet safety
- transition into different school key stages and year groups.
We design all our courses to help parents:
- have confidence in supporting their children at home
- to make learning fun
- to understand teaching methods used in schools.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas on how to help your child’s understanding of maths through simple, fun, activities and games.
You will find out what and how they are learning in school from Reception to Year 4.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas on how to improve your child’s knowledge and understanding of phonics and support their reading.
Explore how children learn phonics, and how knowledge and confidence of phonics will improve their reading and spelling.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas to improve your child’s number skills through activities.
You will look at strategies to support calculation and problem solving and understand how numbers are taught. Learn simple, fun activities and games to reinforce mathematical understanding.
This course is for parents and carers with a child in:
- Reception
- Year 1
- Year 2
at school in Buckinghamshire, who would like to support their child to improve their number skills.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas to improve your child’s writing through activities.
You will look at strategies to support spelling, grammar and punctuation to improve writing and explore different text types and writing styles.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas to improve your child’s science skills and knowledge, through activities.
You will look at to improve how maths and English through science and how it is taught in school. Learn simple, fun experiments using everyday items and explore the outdoor world.
A five-week course to give you practical ideas to improve your child’s wellbeing through activities.
Explore ways to build your child’s confidence, resilience and a ‘can do’ approach to school and home. You will look at ways to help your child cope with anxiety and stress.
Thinking about volunteering
If you are thinking of going back to the workplace and you are not sure where or how to start, volunteering may be for you.
In this free two-hour workshop you will:
- discover the advantages of volunteering
- reflect on what skills you have
- how they match the skills you need to work as a volunteer
- look at where to find volunteer opportunities and what are the next steps in your journey.
This workshop is for parents and carers of school-aged children, who would like to build their confidence and explore volunteering as an optional step to start or return to employment.
It provides information and opportunities to reflect on transferable skills for those parents who would like to volunteer alongside their current job.