1. Plan for productivity

Time may be at a premium, but if you can, plan the learning ‘journey’ you want to go on, highlight any queries you might have and gather any resources needed. You’ll then be able to hit the ground running and maximise the learning potential. Your youngsters should always be working harder than you, but being across things can help you guide them, reduces wasted time and the opportunity for excuses!

2. Create a space for learning

If you can, have a dedicated space for learning activity at home. This could just be the table where you eat dinner, but it should ideally be consistent, temperate and conducive to stints of academic exercise. If it’s possible, find some space to display work, timelines, ideas, or questions to be answered. All can help maintain learning focus from day to day.

3. Promote a mindset for learning

It can sometimes be a tricky to maintain positivity but adopting a ‘can do’ attitude can certainly fortify the learning experience. For your children, particularly if transitioning from less mentally rigorous activity, allow time to ‘warm up’ their learning faculties. Start with activities securely in their comfort zone and then layer up to stretch and challenge them. Encourage by praising the process and progress made.

4. Expect achievement

Frame your expectations positively and be clear about the things they must do, should do and could do. Try to do this with awareness of your child’s values, aspirations and priorities. A shared understanding of goals means you can be the supporter of ambition, not fall into the role of an omnipresent nag.

5. Be clear about success

Communicate plainly about the specific things you’ll be evaluating the success of the learning activity against. Be that the correct spelling of ten key words, the inclusion of light and shade in a painting or the use of eye contact when talking about the reasons Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. Three to five points of reference, regularly checked in on, can help keep learning on track and provide a core tick list for achievement. This should also be motivational and encourage self-responsibility for learning.

6. Consider the consequences

Decide in advance how you’re going to respond should ‘a situation’ arise. What will you say or do if work isn’t done as expected or attitude below par? Planning a response may seem daft but this should never be a reason to fall out. Having a calm and considered response up your sleeve can help diffuse a potential catastrophe. Perspective is key.

7. Know your limits

Don’t berate yourself for not being an expert in all areas. Make the most of the help on offer and appreciate the opportunity to learn something new yourself alongside your child. Modelling how to solve a problem is a really valuable lesson to teach your children.

8. Know when to be flexible

If your child is just not engaging, take a break. It’s not like history is going anywhere! Do something else for a while and come back to it with a fresh head.

9. Share the load

Make use of others around you to help with the learning load. A call to a grandparent, for example, can be a great way to show off the fruits of the day’s learning, practise reading aloud or to discuss the challenges of carving a mortise and tenon joint into a bourbon biscuit when building Biscuit Henge.

...and remember

10. Look after yourself

You’re doing the best you can and no doubt juggling supporting learning with all the other things that come with daily life. Sharing your understanding about the importance of self-care is a great addition to any young person’s learning experience.

Many of you are learning in family groups and have a mixture of ages or abilities to support. You could try approaching the same topic together but allow for some differences depending on age and ability. This might be through:

Support given

While some children will be happy to find out about a new topic by exploring a given webpage or book independently, others will need help working through the text or may need an alternative source suitable for a younger reading age. Depending on the number of learners in your household, you could pair up to tackle a topic.

Communications

You can vary the language you use, the questions you ask, the responses you give and how you feedback on their learning, in line with the level they’re working at.

Approach taken

Understanding a series of events may be as simple as talking through them in turn. Other children may find it more beneficial to draw them, act them out, use a series of freeze frames or put them into a rhyme.

Time given

Simply put, you may need to give some children more time to do something. Don’t forget to allow for your children to process things and link to other information to form a response. How long this takes will vary from individual to individual but when asking a question wait at least 5-10 seconds.

Outcome arrived at

You can choose different ways for your children to demonstrate their learning. For some this may be an illustrated storyboard of events, for others a comparative project looking at similar events. Going further, the events could be examined and analysed to explain a wider question or used to imagine an alternative scenario, leading to debate and decision. This could all be done together – see our Family Enquiry Topics below and Creative Ways to Show What You Know.