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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 reasons why summer learning is important

Girl reading on the beach
The school gates may have closed for the summer, but that’s no reason to allow your child’s mind to follow suit. We have six top tips for summer learning fun.

As parents, some of us have a hard time connecting the words ‘summer’ and ‘learning’. But we're not talking about chaining children to a desk and denying them the delights of their well-earned summer break. Summer learning should be distinctively different – more of a case of keeping the door to learning ajar than flung wide open.

Here are six reasons why summer learning is important for your child’s development:

1. It keeps the mind sharp and stimulated

It is important that a child keeps their mind working during the long holidays to avoid them experiencing brain-drain and facing a setback once term starts again. Research consistently shows that children who do not engage in any type of mental activity during the summer tend to lose up to a third of what they have learnt during the academic year. Teachers typically spend four to six weeks re-teaching material that students have forgotten over the summer and kids spend about the same amount of time settling back into the habit of learning.

2. There’s more time to learn the basics

Taking extra time over the summer holidays to concentrate on one particular subject, rather than focusing on a number of subjects at the same time, will help your child get to grips with the key aspects of that topic. The extra work will help them feel really confident about tricky aspects of maths, spelling or science and boost academic achievements when returning to school.

3. You can find the time to overcome a challenge

During the summer your child is learning without the sense of urgency and pressure associated with school, so the brain is free to relax, to imagine, to wander and to create. This helps to associate happy and positive feelings with learning and may be all your child needs to grasp a previously elusive concept.

4. It increases confidence

Taking extra time during the summer to concentrate on a subject that they found difficult in school and discovering new talents will help to build a child’s self confidence and give a feeling of accomplishment.

5. Innovation, creativity and a love of learning are all promoted

During the holidays children have more control over what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. Your child might want to join a summer camp and take up sports or music, or they could join a performing arts class and become more involved in a production. When it comes to extra learning throughout the summer the world is their oyster. So encourage your child to discover and pursue a new passion.

6. It helps your child to hold on to routines

As much as summer is a time for long lazy days and later bedtimes do try to avoid throwing out all routines completely or you will have a battle on your hands towards the end of the holidays. Routines are healthy and good for children as they provide them with a sense of security, safety and stability. Structure time for learning opportunities but keep schedules light and flexible.

For a summer revision programme for primary school kids look through our subscribers' learning packs for English (KS1 and KS2) and maths (KS1 and KS2).