- Check out your child’s school’s website
Curriculum Map: This gives you a broad-brush overview of what each year group is covering each half term. There’s usually little detail on this, but it gives you a good overview of what they are learning now and for the rest of the year.
Programme of Study: This gives you the curriculum over the year in a nutshell and should give you a week-by-week summary of what your child is learning in each subject, what is being assessed and what is expected to be done for homework.
Key Stage 4 and 5: For students in Key Stage 4 and 5, the programme of study is usually included in the exam board specifications and if the school don’t publish this on their website, it can be downloaded from the exam board’s website.
Key Stage 4 and 5: For students in Key Stage 4 and 5, the programme of study is usually included in the exam board specifications and if the school don’t publish this on their website, it can be downloaded from the exam board’s website.
Scheme of Work: This gives you a detailed account of what your child will be studying in each lesson. It usually has the individual activities, as well as the assessments and homework. This will give you more than enough detail to help you at home with your child and their education!
- Get them to read a book (and make it interesting!)
Build up their reading: Get them to read a small amount; nail this. Then over time, increase the amount they read each day. Include a dictionary, as with a dictionary to hand to find out what new words mean, they will make progress in reading in leaps and bounds.
Primary age: At the start, read for them (model it). Later, read with them at the same time (build their confidence). Eventually, listen to them read (embed their confidence in reading on their own).
Secondary age: Ask them to read and review a chapter of a book and feedback to you or the rest of the family what happened. Get them into it by asking them to predict what happens next.
- Get them to practice a skill
What are they talented at? Interested in? Get them to spend time each day developing a skill in something they’re talented at. Online activities can be found at BBC bitesize, Khan Academy, Educake and Get Revising are all great websites that have stacks of activities.
Otherwise, practice maths (check out Hegarty Maths on YouTube), sports, playing a musical instrument or singing, making things, trying to solve increasingly difficult problems, memorising a song, poem or speech from a film or play.
- Get them to answer a Big Question
- Get them to do some research
- Get them to memorise 20 facts (they didn’t know yesterday)
The only way to get information really in your head is to memorise it. Asking them to find out 20 facts about an area of interest and to memorise these will help not only increase their knowledge, but also increase their ability to memorise things in the future. Break them into small chunks (5 at a time) will help make the journey easier.
- Learn some life skills together
Whether it’s learning to prepare food, cooking a simple meal, learning how to clean, sew or iron, we sometimes forget, we all need to learn these things at some time.
Spending quality time with our children and ensuring they know how to do these important life skills can be an investment in our future as much as theirs!
- Get them to make a presentation of what they’ve learnt today
Whether it’s a PowerPoint, mind map, piece of drama, song or speech, getting your child to present and sum up what they have learnt that day on a topic is a great and fun way to reinforce key learning.
- Get them to review a film
We all love watching films. Every film tells a story. Whatever the film, and almost at whatever age, we can all give our opinion about a film – what went well, which were the best bits (and why) which were the worst bits (and why) and overall whether we would recommend it to a friend.
- Play games together
Contact Michael at: michael@schoolleaderdevelopment.com
