How we’re home-schooling our working parents’ children in lockdown

By Nicky Hale, Head of Talent Engagement

​We’re all too familiar with how working parents are having to juggle home-schooling and work during lockdown. It’s not an easy feat – that’s why our parent company, Impellam, has launched Impellam Superstars, a home-schooling scheme that helps our hard-working parents catch a much-needed break during the day.

Being a working parent during lockdown isn’t easy.
It’s admittedly been a tough time for us all. With children not being able to go to school, they have lost that valuable in-person learning and socialisation with their peer groups. But working parents are also shouldering the extra responsibility of ensuring that their children are on top of their learning and to also keep them entertained in-between home schooling, all while doing their day job.

While flexible working hours have its benefits, we felt it wasn’t enough.
Because many of our people at Guidant and in the wider Impellam group are parents, the main consensus was that they really needed the flexibility in their working hours – which of course, we ensured there was.

From speaking to our parents, we also know that home-schooling is a full-time effort that flexible working hours can’t fully support with. We were compelled to do something more to give our working parents and their children that extra bit of support to create a better work and school day.

A win-win situation: Impellam Superstars
The Impellam Superstars programme was developed with a simple concept in mind: to provide a series of fun and interactive activities to help the children break up their school day. It’s a win-win situation because while the children get to engage and interact with others their age, our parents can catch a quick break from parenting!

As we have so many parents in the business with children of all ages, we made sure to split the children into relevant age groups so that they can attend relevant sessions which would engage them at the right level.

Every week, there are four different sessions to participate in.
Whether it’s maths, PE, creative writing, or more unusual ones like treasure hunts (don’t worry – this was all done at home!), Disney quizzes or a game of ‘Simon Says’ (we couldn’t resist having our very own CEO, Simon Blockley, as a game host), we’re pleased to say that Impellam Superstars has engaged around 70 of our people’s children across Impellam Group since its launch in early January.

Here’s what some of #TeamGuidant’s children have to say:
I had so much fun making a playdoh monster and playing the treasure hunt. I also got sweets for winning the bingo. Thank you, Mummy’s work friends!
– Chloe, age 4

I have had great fun meeting Mummy’s work people and their children, I won Bingo first with Simon Blockley – he wore a green hat!
– Felicity, age 6

It was fun to have learnt some words in German!
– Freddie, age 8

I really enjoyed Impellam Superstars and prefer it to normal school! My favourite is German and I would like to carry on with it!
– Millie, age 8

We are delighted to hear what a difference it has made for the children and their home-school days...
But what did our working parents think about Impellam Superstars? Here are what some of them have to say…

Impellam Superstars show how we work as a family and support our workforce in difficult times, it really is an amazing incentive. It has helped parents and children to feel less anxious and have some fun.
– Kerry Ogden-Hills, Talent Team Manager

The Impellam Superstars initiative has been brilliant fun for my daughter – and me too! The Zoom sessions have slotted in really well around home schooling and still allows me to carry on with my work too. They have really helped to break up the day and give my daughter something to look forward to; phonics and maths home lessons just aren’t exciting when Mum or Dad try to teach it!

Chloe has joined in with a virtual treasure hunt, made a monster out of playdoh, played Maths Bingo (with Simon Blockley in his green hat!) and learned all about verbs and adjectives whilst helping to re-write a quirky version of Cinderella. Our Impellam ‘teachers’ have come up with some brilliantly creative sessions and we really look forward to joining them…
– Steph, Talent Marketing Manager

Impellam Superstars has been fantastic, for us it is almost 3 hours a week where Millie can take part in something fun, learn something new and I can crack on with work without feeling guilty about leaving her on her own! I think she would like to attend Impellam Superstars full time!
– Lauren Sewell, Sourcing Manager

We’re pleased to be able to support our people and help them feel their best at work. Come and join our inclusive team today >