Important update from TheSchoolRun
For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.
What this means for subscribers:
- Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
- In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
- As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.
A few changes to be aware of:
- The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
- The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.
*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.
6 low-cost ideas for a happy Halloween
1. Halloween house decorations
DIY option: Make your own cobwebs with large cotton balls and hairspray. Simply pull apart the cotton balls and hairspray them together! You could also use white and yellow balloons and a black marker to draw pumpkin-style faces and fill the house with creepy 'floating heads'.
Low-cost option: If there's no time (or motivation) for DIY decor, then you can just purchase some fake cobwebs and spiders from Amazon for £2.99.
2. Halloween activity ideas
Free option: Get Halloween ideas by joining a parent WhatsApp group or share ideas with TheSchoolRun community on Facebook.
You can also download our free Halloween worksheets and share them with your friends:
Low-cost option: Purchase a Halloween DIY decorations book for kids for £6.95 and get crafting!
Check out the wide range of craft products and Halloween ideas from Rymans.
3. Halloween window decorations
DIY option: Use black thick card to cut out spooky shapes (such as a cat or a witch on a broom) then stick them to your window. If you make holes in the shapes for eyes or a mouth, when you turn your light on in the evening it will shine through and make it even creepier.
You can also cut out letters and stick a message in your window like Have a Spooky Halloween!
For more decoration and craft ideas, like paper jack-o-lanterns and Halloween bunting, have a look at this blog from our friends at Twinkl.
Low-cost option: Alternatively, you can buy some fairly cheap window stickers online for £4.99.
4. Halloween costumes
DIY options: Get creative with items around the house (no-sewing required!). Use binbags, bedsheets, old socks, boxes or anything you can get your hands on. You could also try to organise a swap shop with other parents (maybe get your PTA on board and organise a mini-market).
Low-cost options: Search your local charity shops for anything that could be made into a costume — they may even have old Halloween costumes. But if you can’t find anything suitable there, you can often find reasonably priced outfits online (like the £14.98 zombie cheerleader costume to the right). You can also find lots of tips on facepainting and purchase face paint pens, which make the process a lot easier.
5. Halloween entertainment
Free option: Have a movie night! Snuggle up with low lighting and put on an age-appropriate Halloween movie. You can get access to Halloween kids movies on Amazon Prime. They normally offer a free week or month trial and you can cancel anytime (but you can only do this once every 12 months).
Low-cost option: TheSchoolRun has partnered with Lovetovisit.com to help our readers get the best family-friendly deals on events and activities across the UK. Browse the Lovetovisit site or download the app for great family deals on tickets to the cinema, theatre, museums and more.
6. Halloween food and treats
Free option: Download an app like Olio, which offers food, treats, clothes — perfectly good items that others have too much of or no longer need — entirely free of cost. All you have to do is pick it up from a nearby neighbour. There are bound to be people who bought one too many pumpkins or bags of sweets (or basic ingredients for cakes). You can also look up free Halloween recipe ideas on sites like BBC good food.
Low-cost option: Supermarkets will often compete with each other during holidays, so do a bit of research and compare what's out there.
