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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.

What is a learning style?

Mum reading a book with her son
What are learning styles and how might you hear about them during your child's primary school education?

Please note that the learning styles theory has been questioned by neuroscientists and educational experts and many teachers have moved towards the use of other, more evidence-based, methods in the classroom. This article is intended to give an overview of the theory as it may still be mentioned during your child's time at primary school.
 

We learn when the brain receives new information, makes sense of it and logs it in our memory. Our brain does this through three primary channels – sight, touch and sound.

There are two other channels that we learn through – taste and smell – and these senses can also help to 'anchor' ideas and concepts in the brain.

Although we will most likely make use of a combination of all three of the main channels, often one channel will be dominant. The dominant channel is known as our preferred learning style. Working out which is your child's can help to make learning a richer, more personal experience.

The auditory learner

People with an auditory learning style tend to have an ear for sounds. They may say, “That sounds right” or “I hear what you're saying” when analysing information or listening to others. They are people who prefer to relax to music, enjoy talking and sometimes may even talk to themselves! They may forget faces, but always remember a name. They are usually not too fond of reading books.

To make the most of learning, the auditory learner should use sound as much as possible. This may mean listening to CDs to get information, rather than only reading books, or making their own recording of key points they need to recall. After reading information they should try summarising it in their own words aloud or explaining it to someone else. If they have to do a spelling test, they should say the word out aloud before attempting to spell it.

The kinaesthetic learner

Kinaesthetic learners learn best when there’s touch or movement involved. They may be fond of phrases such as “That feels right” or “That's easier to handle”. They will prefer games and sports as a method of relaxation and be pretty good at multi-tasking. They will use gestures and expressions quite a bit and when angry, e.g. clenching their fists and gritting their teeth when angry.

Kinaesthetic learners can benefit from learning by copying a demonstration, walking around while reading, putting key points on index cards and ordering them, and generally getting physically active during learning.

The visual learner

The visual learner tends to ‘see' what people mean and to ‘get the picture'. They are more into watching films or going to the cinema or theatre as a method of relaxation. They like to speak to people face-to-face and are often fast talkers. They forget names but remember faces and when angry, tend to seethe silently. They are usually quite fussy about what they wear, too.

If your child is a visual learner they should incorporate visual objects into learning, such as drawing or mind-mapping information or creating diagrams. Timelines as a method for remembering dates or sequences of events are useful, and they should try to visualise information, e.g. going to see a re-enactment to learn about history. When spelling, they should try to see the word before writing it down.