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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.

Relaxation techniques for parents

Mum hugging son
Finding time to relax when you’re a parent is hard work but taking time out will make you feel calmer and boost your parenting confidence, too.

Work-life-parent balance

Recently, baby-carrier company Wilkinet released research confirming what every parent knows: being a mother is back-breaking. It highlighted how pregnancy, cuddling and carrying young children can put the pelvic muscles under stress, leading to backache for many years later.

Tot up the everyday tasks involved with managing a growing family – getting children up and ready on time for school, housework, shopping, taxi-ing, rushing to and from work, planning and making meal and getting the kids off to bed on time – and back-breaking takes on added meaning.

As parents, you often spend all your time looking after everyone else in the family and it can be easy to forget how important it is that you care for yourself, too.

Avoiding burn-out

International speaker and author on family life and relationships Rob Parsons says, “Parenting is a long-haul business. Don’t exhaust yourself.”
It sounds comical but is actually very good advice. “Have time apart from the kids,” says Rob. “If you give yourself completely, they get less.”

This isn’t very easy to do, of course. As parenting charity Parentline Plus points out, “Most of us have had a lifetime of being told it's selfish to think about ourselves and so we may not even know what we need, let alone be able to ask for it.”

But thinking about yourself doesn't mean not caring about other people – it just means caring for yourself as well as others.

“If you want to give your children what they need from you, you need to look after yourself too,” advises Parentline Plus. “You can't do the best for your children if you're running on empty.”

Tips to help you manage

  • Don’t feel guilty about wanting to take some time out for yourself to recharge your batteries. It may just be a long bath or soaking your feet while watching your favourite soap uninterrupted.
  • Think about your own interests and doing something for yourself once a week, such as an evening class or exercise session. Even small treats will make a difference, such as having a lie-in, reading a paper, going to the local gym, or meeting up with a friend. If you are a lone parent, you could ask a friend to babysit and offer to return the favour.
  • Book some time in for yourself rather than filling every available minute doing chores. Sit and read a magazine in your lunch hour rather than tearing around the shops or pop around to see a friend while the children are at school.
  • Be realistic – there's no such thing as the perfect parent - it's about doing your best and being good enough.
  • Ask for help – let other people know clearly and directly what you would like.