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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.

Raising children: practical parenting advice

Smiling circle of children
Bringing up children is no easy task. Are we doing what is right, or getting it wrong? Liat Hughes Joshi, author of Raising Children: The Primary Years joined us in a webchat to talk about her new book and share her parenting advice.

After two years of research, Liat came up with this clever guide with everything you need to know about raising children from four to 11 years, from sleepovers and screen-time to homework and horrid habits.

One of our parents, Dollypeeps, wanted to know, “Does Liat follow her own advice?” Liat said, “I certainly try to. But I know it can be hard in the heat of the moment to do things ‘by the book’ when a child is playing up and you’re tired after a long day. I do my best … and I genuinely believe in the techniques and ideas [in the book].”

Stick with consistency

Dollypeeps mentioned her insistence on firm boundaries, rules and consistency for her children. Liat replied, “I absolutely agree regarding firm boundaries and consistent rules. Inconsistencies confuse kids. It’s very easy to let a child talk you into changing your mind now and then but for every time you give in once, they will then push back again and again on the off chance they’ll persuade you.

“Not following through with threatened punishments is another easy pitfall. If you say ‘I’ll do X if you continue to do Y or don’t stop’, you absolutely must follow through or you lose credibility next time. It’s important not to make a threat in the first place if you won’t be willing or able to actually do it.”

Bickering siblings

A common problem for many families is bickering siblings. Mum, Fredd, asked for advice on what should she do about her squabbling boys: leave them to it or step in?

“In short, with minor disputes leave them to it but have a discussion with them when it’s not the heat of the moment about ways they can relate to each other better and your expectations,” said Liat. “I think more families should sit down and make 'family rules'. Lots of teachers do this at the start of the year and it's very powerful to have clear expectations.”

Teaching responsibility

When children get older, it’s hard to know how to encourage them to be responsible for themselves and their possessions. Janey wanted to know how she could encourage her 11-year-old son to look after his things and not just dump them on the ground or forget about things he had left outside.

Liat asked, “Why do you think he does that sort of thing e.g. is he in his own world or not concentrating? Or does he do it to wind you up? I’m assuming he's just not concentrating from the sounds of it. I’d take the classic line that if he isn’t going to look after things he pays the consequences. Sit him down and have a discussion and explain that he needs to start looking after his stuff. And it is HIS stuff at his age. So if anything gets ruined he will have to pay for another from pocket money. And if he does something which means he’ll get in trouble at school e.g. not being able to wear an essential item [because it’s been left to get damp in the garden], so be it – he’s old enough to take responsibility now and deal with the flak from school.”