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 grammar and punctuation apps for kids
Best for KS1 kids
SPaG Bronze: KS1, £3.99, Apple and Android
Although this collection of apps, written by a headteacher, is not the most flashy, it offers kids a great grounding in the grammar concepts they need to know at each stage of the curriculum.
Watch your child's grammar skills & confidence grow
- Perfect Punctuation Workbook
- Grammar Games Pack
- PLUS 100s of other grammar resources
SPaG Bronze covers sounds, parts of speech, sentences, prefixes and suffixes, spelling and punctuation with lessons and quizzes for each topic, as well as over 300 audio spelling questions and over 180 activities. The lessons are clearly presented and interactive, explaining grammar concepts in child-friendly language. The quizzes are self-marking for instant feedback, and the app uses technology to save your child’s notes, activity answers and quiz scores.
SPaG Bronze is aimed at children in KS1, but it can also be used to help KS2 children consolidate their knowledge. For Years 3, 4, and 5, download SPaG Silver. For Year 6 and lower KS3, use SPaG Gold.
Best for KS2 kids
Mr Thorne’s Grammar School, £3.99, Apple
Primary school teacher Mr Thorne has developed a whole range of educational apps for kids; in Mr Thorne’s Grammar School, he turns his attention to the demands of the SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) test taken by children in Year 6.
The app features 20 aspects of English grammar, ranging from capital letters to parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms and homophones. For each grammar concept, there are four types of quiz to test your child’s knowledge: Missing Words, Odd One Out, Word Hunt and Spelling. There’s also an overall reading test designed to help your child revisit all the skills they’ve learned.
As your child completes the exercises, they collect points towards grammar awards, from Beginner to World Class.
Best for practising punctuation
Squeebles Punctuation, £2.99, Apple and Android
The Squeebles have already helped thousands of children get to grips with maths and English concepts, and their newest app, Squeebles Punctuation, doesn’t disappoint.
Designed in association with primary school teachers and suitable for children aged five to 11, it features four different game modes: Punctuation Placement (move punctuation to the correct place in a sentence), Possessive Apostrophes (drag apostrophes into the correct places), It’s or Its? and Contraction Capers (give the correct contraction for a given phrase, e.g. you have = you’ve). Your child’s task is to answer questions correctly and help save the Squeebles from the Grammar Ghost and the Punctuation Pest.
There are varying levels of difficulty to suit your child’s age and stage, and they rescue 24 Squeebles characters as they play. They also earn stars to use as credit in the Balloon Race game, incentivising their practice.
Best for daily practice
DoodleEnglish, £5.99 per month, Apple and Android
DoodleMaths is used in many schools to help children improve their maths. From the same stable comes DoodleEnglish, designed to build your child’s confidence with grammar, punctuation, spelling and comprehension.
The app is fully aligned to the KS1 and KS2 English curriculum, and begins with an assessment that works out your child’s level. They are then given a series of seven questions to help them practise their English skills, including putting verbs of the correct tense into a sentence, highlighting the compound word, and choosing the correct adverb to complete a sentence.
The idea is that your child practises little and often by completing their seven questions everyday; you can set a reminder to prompt them to do it. They can also unlock new and extra challenges by doing their daily practise. The app adapts to their progress, and there are also wordsearch and crossword games that they can play alongside their daily questions.
Best all-round app
Grammaropolis, £5.99, Apple and Android
Although Grammaropolis is an American app, so you need to be aware that some spellings are different from British English, it’s a fun introduction to grammar for kids, using music and animation to make grammar concepts stick.
It focuses on eight different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections), each of which is presented as an animated character with its own personality. There are catchy music videos and digital books to help your child understand how each part of speech works, and over 400 quiz questions for each to test your child’s knowledge.
As your child follows the map through Grammaropolis and learns about new parts of speech, they earn badges for progress, and the app records their attainment on each quiz so you can see where they’re doing well and what they need to focus on.
Best for building speed
Johnny Grammar Word Challenge, free, Apple and Android
The British Council is the UK’s leading international culture and education organisation, and is behind this app that aims to help native English speakers and learners improve their grammar, spelling and vocabulary.
The app has three distinct areas – spelling, vocabulary and grammar – with the grammar section covering concepts including prepositions, irregular verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and adverbial clauses. Your child’s goal is to beat the clock and answer as many questions as they can in 60 seconds by selecting the correct word to fill the gap in a sentence.
Each quiz is ranked by difficulty level (easy, medium or hard), with your child winning badges for their achievements. They can also see where they are on the global leaderboard: ideal for competitive kids who like to improve on past scores. It’s a great app for children aged eight and over who need to practise answering quick-fire grammar questions in preparation for KS2 SATs.
Best for practising tenses
Grammar Express: Tenses, £4.99, Apple and Android
One important area of grammar for primary school children to master is verb tenses and how they operate. This app, ideal for kids in upper KS2, will give their understanding of tenses a good workout.
Grammar Express: Tenses includes notes explaining how each English tense works, including the various forms of present, past and future tense, irregular verbs, and the verb ‘be.’ These notes are quite technical, so be prepared to help your child read through them. They can then test their understanding with comprehensive 50-question quizzes, which require them to identify the tense being used, or choose the correct tense of a verb to complete a sentence. They can choose whether to be timed or not. At the end of each test, your child can review their answers and see which ones they got wrong.
The app includes over 1000 examples of using tenses, and over 750 questions, with a progress meter so you can see how your child is doing. There are also Grammar Express apps for parts of speech, prepositions, nouns, and more.
Best for grammar practice on the go
Complete the Sentence for Kids, £1.99, Apple
This app is ideal for squeezing grammar practice into those brief windows of time in between your child’s daily activities, with a selection of quick 10-question quizzes aimed at kids aged seven to 13.
The app involves your child choosing the correct word to complete a sentence from three possibilities, with questions covering tenses, male/female gender, singular/plural words, participles, degrees of comparison, adjectives, verbs, and more. There’s lots of positive reinforcement, with a cheerful crocodile character who dances when your child gets an answer right, and makes funny faces if they’re wrong.
There are five levels of increasing difficulty, with 200 sentences per level. To progress to the next level, your child has to get at least seven out of 10 answers right. Level one is free to access, but you can unlock all five levels for £1.99.
