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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.

Should children be able to read and write before they start school?

Child genius doing maths at blackboard
Emily Organ asks if parents should be educating their children at home before their school days have even begun.

My eldest son is four and is about to start school in September. I’ve discovered that when your child reaches this age, education becomes a hot topic. Friends are talking about their children writing their names, reading short words and doing basic maths. The general consensus is that boys are less interested than girls. My son certainly isn’t interested.

I wasn’t worrying about this until we opened our son’s birthday cards. Despite my friends assuring me their sons weren’t interested in learning, what did I find? Most of the boys had written their own names. Why couldn’t our son write his name too?

Early learning – is it necessary?

I’m not worried about our son’s abilities. He met all of his milestones at pre-school and they’re very happy with him there. They tell me that this stage in a child’s life is all about ‘learning through play’.
 
A friend of mine who is a Reception year teacher agrees: “Parents are always asking what they can do with their children at home. I tell them to read books with them but that’s all. There’s no need to worry about teaching them to read and write. And if you do too much before they start school there’s a danger they’re being taught by conflicting methods, they lose interest or they’re bored when at school.”
 
However, won’t my son feel left behind when he sees what these other children can do? I feel pressured to be working on these things with him. But he rarely has a pen or pencil in his hand, he doesn’t like drawing or painting and he gets cross if we try to look at letters or numbers with him. There are a few things we manage to do while playing, such as counting trains and cars. But all he really wants is to run around dressed up as Sportacus or Batman, read books and watch CBeebies, like most four year olds. So isn’t that what we should let him do?

Schooling at four – is it too early?

The UK is unusual in sending children to school at four. Children start school aged six in a number of European countries including Ireland, France, Germany, and Italy. In some Scandinavian countries children are seven when they start.
 
And this early start doesn’t seem to benefit Britain in the international educational league tables. Our children leave school with a very average level of achievement when compared with other countries.
 
A recent review into primary education by Cambridge University recommended that children should not start formal lessons until they’re six. It stated that younger children should experience ‘play based learning’, otherwise those who struggle with formal education at four and five could be put off completely. The current Early Years Foundation Stage for children under five stresses the importance of learning through play.

Competitive parenting

So why are parents quick to impose the ‘three Rs’ onto their children? It can only be that dark side of parenthood: competitiveness. It starts with how old your baby is when they roll, sit up and walk and continues throughout a child’s life. But maybe it’s time we backed off.
 
When my son starts school next year, he’ll have at least fourteen years of education ahead of him. Shouldn’t these precious few pre-school years be devoted to play and learning basic life skills?