86971DiaryZapp for SchoolsClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe measures taken to combat COVID-19 have resulted in long term challenges for children's learning and educational attainment. Schools closing and the country being in lockdown created an environment where children were isolated from school, friends and relatives. Parents had to adapt to home-schooling and teachers had to rapidly work differently to support children's learning remotely, with varying success. COVID-19 has also provided an opportunity to innovate to support this different and still uncertain way of living and learning. DiaryZapp is an award-winning application that brings the art of journaling or keeping a diary into the 21st century and provides a way for younger children aged 4 to 11 (Key Stage 1 and 2) to connect with their friends and family. Originally designed as a way for children to avoid learning loss and combat 'summer slide' over the school holidays, children are encouraged to spend a few minutes each day creating a diary page through drawing, writing, adding photos, stickers and creative play. Additionally, DiaryZapp provides a literacy boost through suggesting alternative words to increase vocabulary, using engaging 'Zappicon' characters who encourage and motivate young writers with positive comments and ideas. This project will evolve the existing DiaryZapp app into DiaryZapp for Schools (DiaryZapp-4S) for Schools through a re-designed database, teacher portal, extensive user experience research and testing to ensure that it meets teachers and pupils needs. This will allow teachers to support children to record their day and take time to make sense of the impact that Covid-19 is having. Crucially, teachers will be able to enhance the learning experienced by the journaling activity, reduce the negative impact of time away from school and encourage creative communications which will help with well-being and improved mental health. DiaryZapp has already attracted interest from schools but cannot be used with multiple children in its current format. The proposal to develop an app that can be used with a whole class and an additional web-based format will flexibly meet schools requirements. A large part of the development will be user engagement to ensure that the final product enhances both teachers and children's experiences. There is a global market for DiaryZapp and this will be enhanced by the addition of a product specifically for use in schools.