Category: School Days

1. Getting in Gear: School Holiday Action Plan

   Posted on 9:26am Tuesday 14th Jun 2016

   Along with the arrival of some much needed sunshine comes the realization for parents that in a little over four weeks we’re going to be hearing the pitter patter of pre-school and pre-teen-sized feet on the floor. No matter how much you love them, we all wish there were just a few more hours in the day to prepare for the impending chaos that’s just biding its time, lying in wait for when the final school bell of the year tolls.

   To avoid six weeks of dullsville and total meltdown at the state of the house by the time it’s all over, here is my handy countdown of three top tips to help you get "Project Successful School Holiday" off the ground.

   

   Clean Up Your Act

   Maybe you’re the proud parent of a gaggle of giggly under 10s or you’re well into the teens with a terrible twosome. Whatever age your children are one thing’s for sure: the cleaning never ends. Just as soon as you’ve wiped the worktops there’ll be sticky handprints and leftover crisp crumbs to greet you. To help lighten the load, get the bigger jobs out of the way before the school gates close for summer. Missed the windows on this year’s spring clean? Get the bucket and buffer out before the kids get home and you’ll have a weight off your mind. Trying to entertain your bored brood and get a good shine on the bay window is unrealistic so put in the effort beforehand and you’ll thank yourself afterward. The same goes for all those pesky jobs we like to leave till last; ovens, shower trays and even the car all come under the pre-holiday TLC action list.

   Be Budget Conscious

   Unless you’ve just won the lottery it’s unlikely that you’ll be taking the kids out every day but at the same time you all need things to look forward to and activities to punctuate what can be a bit of a slog, especially for the younger ones. Before you go booking yourself into the circus, the cinema and the craft club within a day of each other, check your bank balance. Try to ensure you’ve got enough to do something fun away from the house each week without tipping the scales against you. If you can, it’s a great idea to start putting a little more away now in preparation – a rainy day jar really adds up if you can afford to pop a spare ten pounds in each week and you’ll be thanking the Gods when it’s bucketing rain and you’ve got the cash for a visit to the soft play. Most local authorities have a “What’s On” that includes free activities too – bonus!

   Plan Your Fun

   The kids will want to do everything – and we mean everything – that’s on offer in your local area this summer. With your budget set you’ll already know how far the kitty will stretch but money’s not the only issue, there’s also the matter of preference. Child Number 1 likes to paint unicorns with their fingers whilst Child Number 2 is at home climbing (and inevitably falling out of!) trees. Scour your local paper for ideas and see if you can strike a balance; a farm visit could provide a great combination in this case – messy hands and the great outdoors!

   Summer holidays can be the best time of year for families – keep it that way by getting prepared early and commencing battle armed with an organized house, budget and activities. 

   

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2. Preparing your child for KS2 SATs

   Posted on 10:02pm Monday 2nd May 2016

   The KS2 SATs are coming up, and for 10 and 11 year olds it can be quite a stressful time! It’s a worry amongst parents and guardians at the moment. My Facebook feed is currently filled with people talking about the ‘Let Our Kids Be Kids’ campaign that is urging parents to boycott the upcoming SATs for primary school children in Year 2 with over 30,000 signatures on a petition.

   For the children preparing to take their KS2 SATs exams, they’re also facing the big change from junior school to secondary school. This means a whole new environment, and perhaps saying goodbye to close friends which is understandably difficult. During this time of emotional upheaval (although hopefully the prospect of a fun summer holiday break will help!) the are constantly and subconsciously reminded that they must also concentrate on their tests. Whilst the exams can be seen as stressful they are apparently designed to be beneficial in preparing them for future testing. (Who knew?!)

   I know that there are many that are completely against this testing but they are happening regardless of our parental objections, so I have made a plan to prepare my daughter the best way I can, so here are a few ways to help prepare your children for the KS2 SATs, making sure they remain happy, relaxed and confident.

   

   Talk to your child about them

   Keep your tone cheery and upbeat, after all the Year Six SATs aren’t the be all and end all of your child’s life! Encourage them to do their best, but let them know that they are nothing to worry about. Try to keep life flowing along as normal, so not to make the SATs seem like a scary, looming monster.

   Don’t put too much pressure on extra revision

   The school will be preparing your child for the tests, but they may have extra work or be invited to attend extra preparation sessions. Whilst these can be a good idea, try not to push them too much. Perhaps create fun games that help your children learn in order to make it seem less like ‘extra work’.

   Speak to the teacher

   If you want to know exactly what work your children are undertaking during school time to prepare for the SATs, just ask! This way you can have a clear understanding of what your child is currently going through, which can help you plan how best to support them.
   
   Plan something fun as a reward
   
   Giving your child something to look forward to after their exams can help them to stay motivated and positive. It also reinforces the idea that they only need to try their best, and they will be rewarded just for their effort. Maybe a trip out with friends to the cinema or even something as simple as a takeaway for dinner!
   
   Remember that they can be a good thing
   
   The SATs are a great way to show your children that hard work can pay off. Some children can even enjoy taking the tests! As long as your kids don’t feel an overwhelming amount of pressure from home or their school, they can be a positive experience.

    

   This year, our children are being measured against higher standards and despite parents objections and petitioning, they will still go ahead. It is amusing that in the the Governments reply to a teachers' petition about exams they got their grammar wrong! So let's be really honest, if they find it difficult to follow their own guidelines what chance do the pupils who are supposed to be learning them have?

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3. SATS – Educational pleasure or educational pressure?

   Posted on 9:36am Friday 8th Apr 2016

   We have the "dreaded" SATS coming up but SATS- just what does this acronym mean? Is it ‘Simple Addition Tests Sanity’ or ‘Severely Analyse The Schoolchildren’?

   Apparently it actually it means ‘Standard Assessment Tests’ but since their phased introduction starting in 1991, they have become far more than something that can be described as ‘standard’, to the point that nowadays, only the year 6 SATS remain, with KS1 and KS3 tests having been archived to the bad memory file. But despite the science SAT being dropped for our current  11 year olds, it seems that for year 6 students, these tests are definitely here to stay. And with this years SATS (2016) being more rigorous than ever before, just how do we reassure our children that they are nothing to get their knickers, or indeed boxer shorts, in a twist about?

    

   Whether we like it or not, year 6 is a hugely important year in terms of education for our children. We are not talking particularly in terms of academic results, but more as it is the end of an era, and as those parents who have witnessed a primary leaver’s assembly will vouch for, as they all leave for secondary school, your children do go through their own emotional trauma with the overwhelming and very genuine tears to match, and as much as they will miss seeing their friends every day, a lot of the upset is also anxiety about what happens next. Suddenly after being the oldest at school, they will now be the youngest again, but also the way that they work is about to change dramatically. And the point of me telling you this? As much as it is good to protect them from worrying about SATS, actually some anxiety may be healthy and help to prepare them for the next stage in their educational life.

   This also neatly leads into the point that going forward to GCSE’s, qualifications matter when it comes to our children’s future employability chances. The government are placing increasing importance on all of the current youth generation having a qualification in Maths and English and very definitely this can help our kid’s chances of getting a job in an increasingly tough job market. So getting our children used to taking tests can be seen as a good thing. The cleverest of children can get the worst exam grades simply as they are not skilled in taking exams and as harsh as that is, it is reality. My daughter is a Maths whizz but I can see her already becoming anxious about the SATS (which is made worse by the fact that they fall on her birthday week!)

   

   But we can’t forget that SATS are for 11 year olds, and at that age, kids are still very much kids. With hormones starting to whizz around their bodies at a rapid rate, they are very susceptible to panic and stress. However, the biggest reason for children getting anxious about SATS is more often or not the fact that parents are putting them under pressure to do well.  Whether due to their greater importance historically, or parents inevitably comparing their child’s results with others in their class, we are most definitely prone to getting the whole darn thing way out of proportion. We have talked about tutoring recently and how this additional support has been good but I am always conscious not to pile the pressure and try to down play the fact that they are measuring ability!

   As such, my plan is to treat the SATS week just like any other school week. If she is worried, I am just going to play the whole thing down but being mindful that a little bit of stress can enhance performance. If she wants to revise and do extra work, I will let her – it can never be a bad thing. But I plan to give her something to look forward to at the end of the week, like a takeaway or sleepover with friends. Hopefully this will let her know that I understand without making a huge deal out of it.

   Fingers crossed!

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4. "Ideas to keep the kids brains working over the holidays"

   Posted on 8:38pm Thursday 31st Mar 2016

   One of my moms famous pieces of advice to me as a child was “Only boring people get bored”. It certainly worked for me as I never wanted to be boring! Fast forward to now and I find myself using the phrase to my girls and although the children are probably enjoying their much needed time off school far too much (and finding the places I have hidden the chocolate), it is essential to keep their brains well exercised and their body moving, (especially when they come looking to their parents for ideas).

   Here are some tricks that I have found to keep the family engaged and enjoying a stress free term time break. 

   Set up an imagination station.

   Pre holiday - stock up a designated area for messy, creative, an much needed for you alone time play. It can be packed with inexpensive colours and paper, but also lots of household items such as cardboard boxes and empty bottles. These will not normally get used up first by our non Blue Peter generation of kids – the idea is that with scissors and glue you can send them back to their ideas station when the ‘I’m bored’ ever get used. Having basic themes like space, movies, or robots, and sending them away to construct on their own, can give them extra confidence and encourage independent thinking. 

   
   

   Printables.

   Quick, cheap and easy to have pre-prepared. There are lots of free downloadable activities to print and do online. Discover a wave of activities that you would never have thought to design on your own. Giving your child the space to craft and built together reinforces social skills and keeps their mind active on positive endeavors.

   Educational Quizzes

   Trying to get the children to do even the slightest bit of extra work can be a challenge for parents but with online quizzes that are designed to be educational doesn't mean to say that they can't also be fun. This isn't necessarily a "free" option but with a site such as Education Quizzes, you can play and try certain quizzes free of charge as often as your child (or you) wishes. Subscription costs just £7.50 per month and when a subscription is taken out, every quiz on the site is playable and the student will then have a permanent record of which quizzes were played, when they were played and the scores achieved. I particularly like that they use multiple choice quizzes for revision because apparently they provide the fastest route to success. The quiz format constantly makes you think and concentrate so that the user moves forward quickly and doesn't feel pressurised, which is good for pre-teens with a desire to get through work as quickly as possible!!

   Indoor science sessions.

   Science activities can be expertly disguised as games by any willing parent and may be as valuable as the science leant in the classroom. Volcanoes are easily manifested with the help of some baking soda and vinegar and scientific gloop, in all sorts of varieties, can be whipped up from common kitchen ingredients. Simply Google ‘kitchen science experiments’ and you will find a wealth of easy ideas online. These activities help to foster skills that your children will need most when they head back to school.

   Create a multimedia journalist.

   What better way to celebrate time together as a family that to document it – well the good, argument free bits. Whether they decorate a notebook, keep a diary, film a Vlog, make a cartoon or create a photo album, it is a rewarding way for the children to practice their communication skills. Undue thanks will (hopefully) come later down the years, having encouraged them to catalogue their childhood ‘boring’ experiences.

   

    

   Encourage Entrepreneurship.

   Have your children pick out old clothes, toys, and games that they no longer use, that you have been longing for them to grow out of. Make a big deal out of all their efforts and show that it is going towards making some extra cash for everyone. Whether you choose to brave a car boot sale together, or get the children to construct a well thought out Ebay campaign, get them making signs, price tags on items, and thinking about money management skills. It is a great way to end the holiday with a reward for all your hard work in rest and play together.

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