This week marked a return to school like no other. After months of homeschooling, there is concern that many children have fallen so behind in their learning it will take months — or even years — to catch up.
The Government is focusing on plans to enable teachers to bridge the gap — with Mail Force’s Computers for Kids campaign helping deliver the much-needed laptops to children who might otherwise have no access to online learning tools.
But there are many ways parents and grandparents can help, too, stresses teacher Lorrae Jaderberg, joint founder of London-based education consultancy, JK Educate.
‘There’s no need to panic. This doesn’t need to become an added pressure for children or their parents,’ she says.
Children returned to school after months of homeschooling and there is worry they may have fallen behind – but parents and grandparents can still help with this guide (stock image)
‘But what we shouldn’t do is lower our children’s expectations of what they’re capable of achieving as they move forwards in their school lives. Children are resilient, and with the right support they will thrive.’
With that in mind, here’s our guide to the online resources, books and even board games that can help.
FOR AGES 4–7
MAKE LEARNING FUN
Homeschooling saw the parents of younger children become particularly frazzled when it came to reading, writing and arithmetic.
With that burden eased, you and your child can get back to having some fun with these subjects and help boost their skills in a more relaxed way. phonics play.co.uk is a brilliant learning resource, providing games and ideas that help make phonics — matching letters with sounds — stick through play.
Phonics Play is a learning resource that provides young children with games and ideas that help to make learning phonics easier
There are plenty of free resources, such as online comics, for children to enjoy. And to support the transition back into the classroom, anyone who signed up for a free account during school closures will have it extended until April 2.
For full access, two-week free trials are available — if your school has a subscription then pupils can access that from home too, so check with their teacher.
SPELLING IS CHILD’S PLAY
With games that avoid learning by rote, spellingplay.co.uk is an easy-to-navigate, high-quality, free resource which makes spelling fun.
Children learn to understand the rules behind the way we spell words and the games will extend their vocabulary.
Spelling Play is an online resource which helps children improve their vocabulary and makes spelling fun with a variety of games
GET KIDS TO DO THE MATH
American site mathplayground.com signposts to age-appropriate content via the U.S. class grading system, but don’t let that put you off.
It provides maths and logic games for all primary school levels that will consolidate their learning. Go up one from your child’s UK school year to get the corresponding class grade.
FOR AGES 8–11
HOLIDAY HEROES
Taking a break for the Easter holidays just as children are getting back into the swing of school life will frustrate many parents, but it needn’t mean lost learning time.
You can use traditional Easter activities and stories to build your child’s confidence. Take a look at some of the free resources for primary school-aged children at topmarks.co.uk.
The site has a wide range of maths and English learning games on there, too.
GET IN THE ZONE
MailForce’s Computers for Kids campaign is helping deliver laptops to children who may not have access to online learning tools
Quickfire maths quizzes are a good way to get children in the mood to learn each morning before they head off to school. Maths Zone (mathszone.co.uk) offers a daily mental maths challenge.
They’re only ten questions long, so you can do one after breakfast. And if you start at a level lower than your child’s capabilities, it’ll give their confidence a boost before they leave home.
FAST LANE FOR ENGLISH
Go to ixl.com for additional English learning tools. There’s plenty of free content, and if you take out membership, from £7.99 a month, you’ll get access to further resources that the site says will accelerate your child’s educational progress.
ENJOY THE CLASSICS
Playing board games is brilliant for helping primary school-aged children work on social skills, follow instructions and even build resilience as they learn it’s OK to fail. This is while often giving maths and language skills a healthy boost, too.
You may already have some of these classics in the cupboard — otherwise, buy them online from Smyths (smythstoys.com) or Amazon.
Surprisingly, classic board games such as Operation (above) can help children with their manual dexterity, which can actually help with their handwriting
Operation and Buckeroo are good for manual dexterity, which will help with handwriting.
Scrabble, Bananagrams and Boggle will consolidate spelling plus enhance vocabulary and literacy skills.
Monopoly and Cluedo are good for concentration and counting. Dominoes and card games will polish mental arithmetic skills.
WORKBOOK WORKOUTS
Educational publisher CGP (cgpbooks.co.uk) has put together home-learning bundles aimed at helping pupils aged four to 14 catch up, and perhaps even get ahead, with daily practice.
Answers are included in the workbooks, sold through the website, which also provides free worksheets covering core subjects along with French, geography and history.
Another educational publisher, Pearson, produces a wide range of study guides aimed at supporting older children with consolidating learning and preparing for exams, all available from Amazon.
FOR AGES 11-14
CLEVER MEMORY TRICKS
Children pick their GCSE options in key stage three, choosing between languages, humanities and the more creative subjects that lie beyond the core curriculum.
These are the lessons that tend to come alive in the classroom, so motivation may have waned.
Online resource Memrise provides students with pictures, memorable situations and mnemonic devices to help them to revise
If they’ve lost interest in foreign languages over lockdown, memrise.com could help fire them back up again.
Based on the latest science behind how our brains work, it uses ‘mems’, essentially pictures, memorable situations, symbols and any other mnemonic devices to help children remember and revise.
Your child can access more than 200 language courses for free and there are lots of extra features from about £4 a month.
THEATRE TRIP ON SOFA
Class theatre trips are still cancelled, but the National Theatre is looking to inspire a continuing love of drama at nationaltheatre.org.uk. You can subscribe to enjoy unlimited access to productions streamed online from £8.32 a month.
CALL IN THE EXPERTS
Not-for-profit website Khan Academy provides children with video tutorials on every topic from cosmology to maths
Khan Academy (khanacademy.org) is a not-for-profit website with video tutorials on everything from maths to cosmology.
Your child will be able to get help on a subject they can’t quite grasp, or just learn about something that piques their interest.
If you’re worried that they may have fallen behind with core maths skills then Mathigon (mathigon.org) has some great problem-solving challenges for this age group.
While Mathigon specifically helps students between ages 11 and 14 with their core maths skills using problem-solving challenges
Q&A TO REMEMBER
For older children, quizzes help information sink in, making them a great revision tool. But they can also help to assess any gaps in their learning. They’re enjoyable, and less stressful than more formal testing.
BBC Bitesize has a great selection (go to bbc.co.uk),while educationquizzes.com offers free quiz-based tests across all subjects and year groups, right up to GCSE level.
FOR AGES 14–18
TEST THEIR KNOWLEDGE
Whatever format is decided upon to grade GCSE and A-level students, one thing’s for sure: testing will be integral to the process as teachers assess what pupils do and don’t know.
S-Cool revision website provides GCSE and A-Level students with in-depth revision and exam style questions to make sure they are well prepared
That makes revision as important as ever, even for children not currently in exam years.
That’s because, during this latest lockdown, they will have missed out on the revision lessons they would normally receive to help them prepare for mocks, as well as whatever tests they will go on to take in 2022.
Revision site s-cool.co.uk covers most subjects in depth, broken down into topics with detailed overviews followed by multiple choice and exam-style questions. And what’s more, it’s completely free to use.
PRACTISE PAST PAPERS
Savemyexams, which costs £6.99 a month, offers a range of past papers and mark schemes to GCSE and A-Level students for all their major science and maths exams
For GCSE and A-level students, savemyexams.co.uk is ideal, offering free access to past papers and mark schemes for all major science and maths exams.
For £6.99 a month, or £24.99 a year, you get access to worksheets with questions grouped by difficulty or topic.
HIGH-TECH FLASHCARDS
Flashcards for today’s children need not be made of paper or card. Clever website Quizlet (quizlet.com) provides the tools to make virtual, interactive flashcards which can be used to revise anything from poetry terminology to algebraic equations.
Quizlet allows students to make their own flashcards on topics and offers some free access, while an advanced version of the website costs £41.99 a year
Children can use flashcards other users have already made or make their own set specific to a particular subject.
Some access is free, but you can take out a seven-day trial for a more advanced version of the site, after which, unless you cancel, you’ll be billed £41.99 a year.
LISTEN AND LEARN
The great thing about gcsepod.com podcasts, which break subjects down into topics, is that they can be watched on a laptop while revising actively or listened to on the go.
Some schools subscribe, or you can pay for individual access — and there are plenty of free resources, too.
REVISION AID
Homework and revision platform senecalearning.com aims to boost older children’s learning and contains some particularly useful sets of the toughest exam questions and topics they can get their teeth into.
Seneca Learning provides some of the toughest exam questions and topics to really challenge students on their chosen topics
If your child gets a question wrong, they’re shown the content again in a different format to help it sink in.
There are loads of free resources — plus you can take out a trial of what a premium account offers.
You can also sign up as a parent and get weekly activity reports to monitor your child’s progress.