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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.

Learning games to play on long car journeys

family having fun in car
Going on a long car journey with the kids? Sick of hearing ‘are we nearly there yet?’ Banish boredom by trying some fun, educational games with your children.

Strapping the whole family into a car for more than ten minutes has a (very well-deserved) reputation for causing siblings to bicker out of boredom and nag stressed parents. But in fact, car journeys can be wonderful learning experiences, if you’re willing to take advantage of the time on your hands and the ever-changing surroundings.

Make the most of the journey

For a start the journey itself is a perfect opportunity for your child to practise what they have learnt in geography. They can read the map, help you plan the route and point out the road signs as you travel, so turn off the sat nav and delegate the navigation duties for a change.

Indulge in chilled out activities

Long journeys with children provide ample time for nurturing communication skills and cognitive thinking – whether debating the merits of the final Harry Potter book or sitting silently in awe of your children, as they sit silently in awe of an audio book. Most books have an audio equivalent these days, meaning the experience can be factually informative or fictionally creative – visit your local library for a selection of audio books to borrow.

Educational car journey games

However golden, silence never lasts forever where children are involved and eventually you will need something that entertains them on an interactive level. Fortunately there are plenty of educational games that will keep the kids amused all the way to Gran’s and back. Try these:

Back-seat bingo
Make up bingo sheets with images of things you might see on your car journey. Each person should have a slightly different set of images and the first person to spot all the things on their bingo sheet is the winner.

The alphabet game
Pick a theme and, starting with ‘a’, take it in turns to think of a word starting with the next letter of the alphabet.

Animal, mineral, vegetable
Think of an animal, mineral or vegetable then let everyone take it in turns to guess what it is by asking you questions – you may only answer "yes" or "no".

Car pool
Pick a colour and then try to spot a car of that colour. Once you’ve spotted seven you can look for a black car to win the game. However, if your opponent spots a white then it’s their turn to spot the cars. This game can also work using the rules of snooker.

Registration plate games
There are a number of games you can play with a registration plate, including a variation on the alphabet game where you work your way through the alphabet as fast as you can spotting plates with the relevant letters. Alternatively your child could compete with a sibling or parent to see who can add up the plate numbers quickest.

Download more classic car game rules from BP's Keeping Britain Moving website.