Lockdown Looms: Reggie's Birthday Party

Product Information

Learning focus activities include exploring different Commonwealth Countries and individual activities that explore King Charles’ love of favourite recipes and flowers—with children colouring and planting to celebrate. Not least– children dressing up in Red, White and Blue with their home made “Crazy Day Hat” to wear too! Lots of fun and learning !!! Banji’s teaching career started as a student at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, where he undertook a placement in a school with disadvantaged pupils - an experience that Banji says prepared him fully for his career in the classroom. “I think the opportunity to train and do my placement at a very challenging school really set me in good stead for the rest of my teaching career and gave me the skills needed to teach anywhere,” he explains.

Covering topics including masks, social distancing, home schooling, vaccinations, bereavements and food shortages, the book was written “to allay the fears of my learners surrounding the pandemic, help them to understand what they were going through and facilitate discussions around mental health and wellbeing,” explains Banji. While juggling teaching and writing amidst a pandemic brought its challenges, Banji reflects on that period with pride. “By writing the book, I was able to turn a negative into a positive and inspire and motivate my learners in a creative way. It was a real career highlight for me,” he says. Laying the groundwork Alexander recounts, “I had my own issues. I had issues in my family. I lost my uncle during the pandemic. This book was like therapy to me because some of the themes in the story are hope, determination, adapting to change, kindness, and these were skills and qualities that I wanted my pupils to gain, but they were also qualities I had to remind myself that I was capable of tuning into during that very difficult time for myself and my family.” Mr Alexander is hoping his book will be used by other schools and has already received supportive messages about the book from headteachers and librarians and the impact it has had on their learners.Mr Alexander is hoping the book will help children to learn how to manage their expectations which positively impacts their mental health. One of Alexander's main joys from teaching is inspiring the next generation. He hopes to inspire future doctors, writers, musicians, scientists, etc. There is also an emphasis on teaching his students not to limit themselves to one part of life. He says everyone can do amazing things, but it is just that people don’t lean into that side as much as they should. Alexander’s parents were strict when it came to academics, and as a result, he devoted most of his time to schoolwork. Even when he wasn’t in school, he spent much of his free time reading rather than getting in trouble. His motivation for becoming a teacher was to inspire the next generation. Growing up, he did not have many teachers that looked like him and came from where he was from. Alexander wanted to be a teacher that kids could relate to. The important messages in the book are of kindness and resilience, patience, gratitude and adapting to change.

The important messages in the book are about kindness, resilience, patience, gratitude and adapting to change. I want the reader to know there is light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how challenging things may seem. I hope the book will help children learn how to manage their expectations, and become better at articulating how they are feeling.” Mr Alexander, a teacher at an inner-city South London school, said: “I didn’t have a book that I could use to walk my learners through the Covid-19 pandemic and the strange new world around us: masks, social distancing, homeschooling, vaccinations, bereavements etc. The aim was to write a book that would offer hope and benefit children’s mental health, said the author, who said he discussed the characters’ feelings with his pupils, teaching them vocabulary to express their own emotions with more accuracy.We celebratedthe Coronation of King Charles III on Saturday 6th May with activities and events in school on Friday 5th May. When I started writing the book, I knew that I wanted to point to light at the end of the tunnel – a different type of happy ending which would help both adults and children with their mental health.”