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.
Best electronics sets for children
Snap Circuits Beginner Electronics Discovery Kit
£37.95, Snap Circuits
A chunky kit that's built to last (and is easy for small fingers to manipulate), this includes 14 parts to allow your child to build more than 20 projects to learn the basics of how switches and circuits work. Created just for younger "engineers", the manual has very few words and lots of step-by-step diagrams and the parts have extra safety features integrated for safety. Your child will be working with integrated and digital circuits and fuses, but the sturdy pieces are easy to fit together, even for KS1 kids.
Easy Electronics Circuits
£30, Thames & Kosmos
A great starter kit for helping your child understand electronic circuits. It's easy to use and you can conduct experiments to see what happens when you use different electrical components. This will teach your child all about the physical science principals involved with electricity.
Science Museum Potato Clock
£13.90, 4M
Did you know that potatoes can generate electrical power? Introduce children as young as 4 to electrical principles and alternative energy with the potato clock – high voltage, inspirational fun! The kit comes with all the wires, transparent tape, copper and zinc strips you'll need; just add a couple of tatties to start the clock.
Circuit Maze
£37.27, ThinkFun
Turn electronics into a game with this brilliant challenge set. Your goal is to set up a real electrical circuit that lights up specific beacons, and there are 60 challenges to complete, from basic to very tricky. By the time you're solving the expert-level puzzles you'll have understood exactly how a circuit works, the hands-on way!
Circuit Scribe Mini Maker Kit
(£13.99, Cool Components)
Circuit Scribe makes creating your own circuits as simple as doodling: use the conductive ink pen to draw on any paper, then attach the electrical component modules and a 9V battery to allow an electrical current to run through the circuit. With no soldering or wires to worry about, what might your child invent with this affordable mini kit?
Electricity Workshop
(£34.99, Buki)
Answer electricity questions with some hands-on experimentation and find out the difference between a series circuit and a parallel circuit, why a saline solution is a conductor, how a motor and an alarm work, what turns a light bulb turn on and how you make a siren. Recommended for ages 8+, with no soldering required.
ScienceWiz Cool Circuits Puzzle
(£26.99, ScienceWiz)
An electronics-themed puzzle set with a light-up game board, suitable for all ages (and some of the puzzles are so tricky that adults will be hard-pressed to solve them). Master each challenge by completing the circuit to light up the board; there are 40 puzzles of increasing difficulty, from beginner to practically impossible (thankfully the solutions are provided!).
