Capable Child

  As children head back to school this September, for some of them they will have been away from school for almost six months. It’s completely unprecedented and a new experience for parents and children. Some children and parents will be desperate for normality to resume whilst others may have carved out a new normal that they enjoy.   Children and parents will have had many different positive and negative experiences. Whatever the case, I’ve suggested a few ways that may make the transition back to school a little smoother.   Encourage your child to talk to friends of relatives who have already been back to school.  This could be key worker children who kept going to school during lockdown, children in the year groups that did return or friends in other countries. We have friends in Scotland whose Autumn term has already begun so we have a chat planned on Facetime. School won’t be the only topic of conversation but I’ll be sure to encourage it and hope it can b...

Along with millions of other parents around the country, I’m suddenly an accidental home schooler. Whilst some children are due back at school soon, for others there could be many more weeks of home school. Over 15 years of teaching experience means that I didn’t feel the rise of panic that many other parents faced. I have access to resources and have ideas up my sleeve to fall back on. However, there have been challenges and over the weeks of accidental homeschooling, I’ve certainly changed my approach along the way to make life a little easier. Less is More! An experienced homeschooler once told me that she only had to do a few hours a day to cover the whole curriculum with her child. Impossible, I thought. Children are at school for over 6 hours a day. It’s hard for teachers to fit everything in.     I now find that it is indeed possible. 1 to 1 for most children means that things can be covered much more quickly.     A couple of hours of good concent...

One of the things that I find really upsetting as a teacher is children who start school nursery or even Reception with very little speech. Children are often frustrated and can be withdrawn or sometimes aggressive in a bid to make themselves understood.  Children with severe special needs may need some very specific help. However, the majority of children need a language rich environment and this can start from birth. I have been very specific in encouraging the speech development of both of my children.  Babies often try and reach for mouths when they are being held.  They study faces intently and that is part of the learning process. I let my daughter see my face when I’m talking to her. Sometimes we look in the mirror and talk. I make sounds and let her watch and sometimes feel the sound coming out. She finds bbbb very funny. I encourage my baby to make sounds by echoing and mimicking what she says. An ahhhha comes out of her mouth and I say it ba...

Seven years ago the cloth nappies we used on Little Lady were extremely hard work. The shaped terry nappies were very bulky and difficult to put on her. The terry nappy had to be wrestled inside a water proof wrap. We used cloth at home but I never felt confident enough to use them out and about. We saved plenty of nappies from land fill but this time, with my second baby, I was determined to do more. When Littlest Lady, born in March this year, got to a couple of months old we tried again with the bulky terry nappies. The big pail of water reappeared by the washing machine. My husband was convinced that Littlest Lady was unhappy in the bulky nappies. They were so big. She was so little. They came half way down her thighs. Around the same time, I met another ‘Cloth Bum Mum.’ Her little girl was in cloth full time- I had a lot of questions! “It looks like cloth nappies have come on a lot in 7 years,” I told my husband one evening after a detailed cloth nap...

Earlier this term, children in Year 2 at state schools all over England took their SATs tests. SATs tests are used to inform teacher assessment. Schools have a legal responsibility to inform parents of their child’s national curriculum assessment results. Most schools will add in a results page in children’s end of year reports. What results will be reported? Teachers will give a judgement on your child’s standards in Reading, Writing, Maths and Science. Children will be assessed as: Working towards the expected standard (Below where children are expected to be at the end of KS1) Working at the expected standard                               (Where children are expected to be at the end of KS1) Working at great depth within the expected standard (Children with a very secure understanding of concepts cover...

Whatever your view is on testing children using SATs, most parents will agree that they want their children to achieve the expected standard in Maths, Reading and Writing as they leave Key Stage One and move up into Key Stage Two (or ‘The Juniors’). This means that they are on track for their age and ready for the challenges of Year 3 and beyond. There are definitely ways that parents can support and encourage their children in all subjects. Below, I give my top five ways of helping your child in Maths- no specialist knowledge required! Money, Money, Money My Little Lady invariably sees me paying for things with card. If I need cash, I have to scrabble around for it! Children need to be able to recognise the different values of coins so I have to make an effort to ensure that we firstly have some coins at home and secondly play with them. A favourite activity for us is setting up a shop with jars, tins and packets from the kitchen cupboard. We use real coins, a toy cas...

I didn’t plan a six year age gap between my girls. Once Little Lady‘s first birthday had passed, it was time to try again for a second baby. I knew it was going to take a while because it had been a long road the first time. As I had packed away each set of baby clothes all clean and labelled with ages, I had prayed that I would be able to use them again. When I actually discovered that I was pregnant again for the second time, it was coming up to Little Lady’s sixth birthday. I was in a state of delighted shock and struggled to believe it could be true. I paid for a scan around seven weeks because I just needed to see that there was actually an embryo inside, growing and safely beating away. Thank goodness for my morning sickness confirming that it was all true! We had left the baby stage behind long ago. Now we were able to leave the house with just a set of keys in our pocket. We had envisaged having children close together, them playing with the same toys and being b...

Cooking with a class of children at school is HARD work. Even in smaller groups, children may get a couple of stirs of the mixture or the chance to throw some ingredients in the bowl. This is why cooking at primary school is rare and why cooking at home is so lovely for children. They get to be involved from start to finish. Here are my top 5 super-duper easy things to cook with kids. Something  very, very easy! My number one for being very, very easy is bread making - from a ready mix packet I should quickly add! Literally, all you need to do add is water. We made bread a lot when Little Lady was a toddler. Working the dough strengthens little fingers and builds muscles which are also needed for writing, drawing, cutting, painting etc. Working the dough into different shapes and printing into it with simple objects like forks is fun in itself. The best part though is getting to eat warm, buttery bread fresh from the oven. It never lasts very long in our house. T...

Your child is now a month into Reception. I’m guessing that they are reasonably happy being dropped off in the morning, that they have started talking about children that they play with and they mention how their teacher likes things done - a lot. I’m also guessing that at home they may be cranky, overtired and, at times, tearful. It’s pretty tough being a parent of a child who is starting school. First comes the worry of how your child will get on and then later comes the thoughts about whether your child will get used to the weeks and months of school ahead of them. Starting school may be one of the biggest life changes that your four or five year old has been through. Even for children who attended nursery full time, school is quite different. The levels of concentration required are high. The expectations upon children are many and varied. As a parent or carer, you are their emotional back up and it’s you who gets all the worst bits, for a while anyway. Here are my t...

When children begin school, parents want them to settle and make friends. In my job as deputy head teacher, from time to time, I speak to parents who are concerned that their child is not making friends easily or are struggling to find other children to play with at lunchtimes. I often ask whether the child has other children over to play. The answer is often no, but arranging some play dates can be a positive step forward. Going on your first play date without your mum or dad is a rite of passage in the first years of primary school. These shared experiences cement friendships and build social skills. As a parent, you get an afternoon off the school run and time to get some jobs done. However, you are expected to return the favour… Play dates can be great fun but they can also include tears and cross voices. I have a few tricks that, hopefully, encourage things to go smoothly. 1.Sharing is a tricky business. It’s usually easier for children to share at school or nu...

Starting school is a huge event in a child’s (and parent’s) life. There are new routines, new clothes and other new children. Having seen this transition as a Deputy Head Teacher, and more recently as a parent, I believe that there are some things that parents can do to make this move as smooth as possible. Here are my top four thoughts. Firstly, there are some brilliant books about starting school. My all-time favourite is Starting School by the Alhbergs. It’s obviously dated in parts. For instance, most schools won’t have a mum who comes into school to play the piano! However, it is beautifully illustrated and shows the different parts of the school day and  events during the first term at school which provide lots to talk about. Other great titles are ‘Bella Starts School’ and ‘Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School’, both by Ian Whybrow. It’s well worth investing in a book or two, as they can be revisited lots of times during the school year. Secondly, ...

Whoever says potty training is easy, is not sharing   the whole picture. Potty training is a learning process and there will be challenges along the way. Here are some of the challenges that I faced and how I survived them.  Going Out and About I really struggled with hanging around the house with just the potty for company in the first week of potty training. But going out felt impossible. The first couple of times that we went out it was a team approach with a sympathetic family member. I knew the worst thing that could happen was a wet patch and on the scale of things it really wasn’t a big deal. But just when my bag was getting lighter, it filled up with changes of clothes. The first couple of outings were to the park or understanding relatives and really it was fine. I’d built it up to be more daunting than it actually was. They weren't completely puddle free trips but we all survived. It took a while before I returned to the supermarket with Little...

What is The Phonics Screening Check? Year One children in state schools are tested on their phonics knowledge by being asked to read forty words out loud. Half of the words are real words and the other half are ‘alien words.’ All of the words can be sounded out using phonics sounds. Children are told when they are reading real words or ‘alien words’ such as vay or quish. When does it happen? Children will be tested at some point between Monday 11 th June and Friday 15 th June. Any children absent during that week can be tested the week after. Will my child be aware of the check? Schools try their best to keep the check very low key. Most children will be unaware that they are being tested. They are likely to be asked to go to a quiet area with a teacher that they know and read some words. Year One children all over the country will already have been doing this for the last few months as part of preparations for the check. What’s the pass mark? For t...