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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 enquiries@theschoolrun.com. 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.

Foundation Stage PE explained

Mum walking with children in woods
Want to know what your child will learn in PE when they start school? Here’s all you need to know, plus tips for supporting their learning at home.

At this stage, the aim of PE is to improve skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement, much of it taking place through free or lightly structured activity. So a child may dance while listening to a story, music CD or action rhyme.

Your child will develop large motor skills through jumping, hopping, skipping, climbing and running, and also through playing with pedal and push-and-pull toys. Your child will participate freely in these kinds of activities both indoors and outdoors.

Fine motor skills may be acquired by filling a container with sand, doing a puzzle or stringing beads. Your child needs these skills to do up buttons or laces and to hold a pen or pencil to write correctly. Children who practise and succeed in filling containers in the water tray will handle drinks more successfully and have the confidence to, for example, pour out their own drinks.

There are some language objectives in PE lessons, too. The teacher may introduce words for negotiation and co-operation, such as ‘share’, ‘wait’, ‘take turns’, ‘before‘ and  ‘after’.

Lesson examples

Here are some examples of what teachers have covered in PE classes:

  • The children carry out the actions of the story Going on a bear hunt. They interpret different ways of moving, carefully avoiding bumping into each other.
  • The class pretend to be planes. They put their arms out while moving around the room making engine noises. After several minutes they lie down on the floor to mimic a plane landing.
  • Using an obstacle course created by the teacher, the children follow one another to swing along the overhead ladder hand over hand, crawl through the tunnel, hop along the bench and roll sideways across the mat.

Help your child at home

Employ these tactics at home to add to your child’s school learning:

  • Walk to nursery or school, and go for walks in the park.
  • Encourage active and rough and tumble play in the garden, indoors or at adventure parks.
  • Teach your child to ride a bike and to balance on a scooter.
  • Aim for at least an hour of moderate activity every day. Plus encourage activities that enhance and maintain muscular strength, flexibility and bone health twice a week, such as climbing, skipping, jumping or gymnastics.
  • Encourage your child to eat their five a day in a variety of fruits, vegetables and colours.
  • Talk to your child about the importance of eating healthily and keeping active.
  • Check out Artie's Olympics, a fun activity-based scheme for nursery-age children that also raises vital funds for the BHF.