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 spelling board games for children
Match and Spell, £7.50
Encourage preschool and Reception children to start to recognise letters and build words with this popular first phonics game. The object of the game is to spell words by matching the correct letter cards with them; once they've grown in confidence children can turn the board over and use their phonics sounds knowledge to spell out the words themselves. Sturdy and colourful pieces mean it will withstand plenty of early-reader handling!
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- Spelling workbooks
- Step-by-step programme
- Spelling test packs
- 100s of worksheets & games
Fish 'N' Spell Race, £25.10
Who doesn't enjoy a fishing game? This two-player game challenges children to be the first to 'catch' and order the letters needed to spell a target word; it comes with 80 letters so you can devise your own word lists to play with if you don't want to use the 100 suggested words (which come on four-language word cards, if you'd like to make it a multi-lingual game!).
Match and Spell Next Steps, £8
The "sequel" to Orchard Toys’ best-selling Match and Spell, aimed at children aged 5+ and designed to help develop reading and spelling confidence with both simple sounds and blends. The double-sided boards offer extra play value; once the game has been mastered the blank-sided version is an extra challenge. Great for new readers in Y1.
Spelling Cards, £6.99
A card-game way to practise spelling the words listed in the national curriculum statutory word lists for Year 3 and Year 4. Encourage your child's competitive streak with a two-person race and get the spelling test practice done though play.
Breaking News!, £20
A newspaper-themed game which offers punctuation, grammar and vocabulary challenges as well as spelling questions. The aim of the game is to create a complete newspaper, working against the clock to find and correct errors in headlines before handing them to the editor. Suitable for 2-6 KS2 players.
Sight Word Bingo, £7.50
"Sight words" is the US term for high frequency words and this bingo-style game is a great way to help Reception and Year 1 children get to grips with the words (like that, they, are, is, said, had, if, soon, because and more) they need to be able to read and spell instantly. A spinner and 35 markers are included, along with an activity guide. Suitable for 2-4 players.
Pop for Sight Words Game, £9
A popcorn-themed game box and popcorn-shaped cards (featuring the top 92 high frequency words): this fast-paced game helps develop children's fluency with the words they need to recognise on sight. Perfect for Reception and Y1 learners, and you can buy an extension pack, POP for Sight Words 2, once the first batch have been mastered.
Scrabble Twist and Turn, £21.95
A portable, speedy and easy version of Scrabble, Twist N Turn is a great game to get the whole family spelling. There are no points, lots of wildcard tiles mix play up and younger kids can compete (and win!) against older players easily. Pack it in your suitcase to add a spelling dimension to holiday evenings!
Teach Your Monster to Read tabletop phonics games, free
A downloadable and printable companion to the brilliant Teach Your Monster to Read interactive games, these "board" games help new readers (and spellers!) identify and match letter-sounds and practise blending, segmenting and word recognition. And they're completely free!
Have fun with spelling, TheSchoolRun subscriber learning pack
A downloadable pack of 18 spelling games for EYFS, KS1 and KS2, including print-out boards and instructions. Help your child practise learning a list of new words, applying a spelling rule, using a dictionary, recalling alphabetical order, identifying silent letters, counting syllables, rhyming and more.
8 Spelling Board Games, £37.99
These brightly illustrated game boards cover the alphabet, digraphs, rhymes, split digraphs, vowel phonemes and the first 45 high frequency words. Aimed at children aged 5-8, the box contains 8 games, 30 counters, a die and an answer sheet.
Got it! Learning spelling card games, £9.95 each
Multi-sensory and dyslexia friendly, the Got it games are quick-to-learn 10-minute games: Word Race, Word Pairs, Word Switch, Word Sets and Word Match. Designed by a primary school teacher to be in line with the National Curriculum and suitable for children aged five and over, the games cover reading and spelling of high frequency words and phonics phases 2 and 3. For two to four players.
