Helping You To Help Your Child

Research shows that children whose parents help and encourage them with their learning at home do much better at school. This can be; hearing your child read or at least talk to them about the books they are reading, overseeing their homework, learning the spelling of key vocabulary together, researching topics and generally showing a key interest in what they are studying at school. Other ways you can support is by making sure your child keeps up to date with the daily news. You can support this by encouraging your child to watch the news or to read it every day. Try and find news stories that will connect to their subjects. If you are planning a day out, visit a museum or gallery that will tie in with work you child is doing. This is a good way to add depth and interest to your child’s learning.

Good study skills are best developed from the beginning of Year 7 and do not end at school. It is essential that good learning habits are encouraged at home too, in order that learning is extended beyond the classroom. If these positive study habits are developed early, they are fully embedded by Key Stage 4 and 5 when they become absolutely essential.

Top tips for helping your child to develop good study skills:

• Remember that challenge is essential for a child to learn- allow them time to ‘puzzle it out’ before offering too much assistance
• Ensure that they take regular breaks, exercise regularly and keep hydrated
• Talk about what they are doing and ask them to explain it to you
• Ensure that your child is well rested and gets plenty of sleep
• Regularly encourage and praise your child
• Create a routine for completing homework e.g. have a rest after school and then complete homework
• Avoid too many distractions e.g. TV/siblings/loud music/mobile phones

Planning family time

Hot tip: Plan the family diary together.

Help your children to manage their time. They need to allow time during the evenings and weekends for homework. How does this fit in with their other activities and family events? Your children have a homework timetable. For year 7 students about one hour a night is scheduled.

A simple but effective system is for students to have a short break when they get home from school, but then to get straight on with homework before doing anything else.

Hot Tip: Use mealtimes to find out about your child’s day.

Research shows that the children of families who eat together do better in exams. Even time in front of the television can provide a stimulus for debate and discussion. Chatting about the day's events helps all of us. We all learn better when we explain things to other people, so by chatting about something the children have done at school you can reinforce learning.

Reading

Reading is a fun and enriching experience for many of us. In addition there are strong links between love of reading and academic success. The English faculty and the Library staff work constantly to encourage enjoyment of reading. Students have one reading-related homework per week. Parents can support this by:

• Encouraging your children to enjoy reading for fun
• Have a light touch - don't be judgemental
• Everything counts: sports reports, magazines, websites
• Help them choose books and magazines
• Encourage them to get books from the school library/local libraries
• Encourage them to join the school Reading Group
• Let them see you enjoying reading
• Audio books are a good way of entertaining children in the car
• Talk about books
• Books make great presents.

Hot Tip: Reading the same book as your child enables you to engage in discussion with them.