A Home-School Approach to Life Long Learning

The Learning Triangle Child Home School

Children have 2 main educators in their life….parents & teachers. Why are we here? Children have 2 main educators in their life….parents & teachers. The role of parents is crucial to a child’s success at school – from Reception to University. Research shows that: Where a parent is involved in helping their child learn, they achieve higher results in informal and formal tests throughout their schooling (age 3-19). Children achieve more where schools and parents work together. Parents have a bigger impact on their child’s learning when they know how the school would like them to support so that strategies are taught in the same way. Parental behaviour and attitude towards learning has a bigger effect than school quality on pupil attainment at Key Stage 2. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in early school years is evident regardless of the family’s socio-economic background.

Being a good learner relies on different things: Having a positive attitude to learning- a GROWTH MINDSET Having the skills to be able to learn. Developing knowledge and using this to learn new things. Having confidence and self-esteem. Being happy. Being given appropriate support from different networks. Accepting it and utilising it to best effect.

Attitude is everything! The attitude that we have about learning will rub off on our children. Who has EVER said ‘Well, I didn’t do any good at school and I was rubbish at maths anyway’ ?

How can we foster a love of learning? Talk to your child about being a lifelong learner….. What have you learnt this week? Discuss the Weekly News with them – what are they looking forward to next week? Praise their efforts, not just the end results– Perseverance is a key component to success! Set academic targets – long term and short term. Explain that learning isn’t instant, it’s a journey - You need to know this because….. Complete home learning/reading when child is at their freshest…..not just before bed / as you’re running out the door in the morning.

Building your child’s learning skills! Being an independent learner – have you had a go first? Making links between learning – have we seen this somewhere before? Being able to ask questions – I wonder what would happen if… Perseverance – keep going! Managing distractions Working alone and in collaboration – I wonder who may be able to give us a hand? Reasoning & evaluating – That’s a great way of getting the answer; could you have done it a different way? Building resilience – learning from mistakes, and modelling that it’s ok for adults to make and learn from mistakes is a key component to learning!

How can we help them to develop greater independence? We encourage children to begin to take responsibility for their learning early on (homework, reading book, asking for help). We encourage children to be self-resourcing and responsible for finding out different ways of exploring a concept. Can they explain the task to you? (This shows that they have to have listened carefully to the task in class and then share the instructions with you – by verbalising actions, children become more able to do the task). Review the task together (How did you do? Did you need help with anything? If they need help….what do you already know that might help you with this?).

How can we help them develop greater organisation skills? Organise tasks: Talk me through it as you do it. Have you got everything you need to be able to do your work? Organise time: When will you do this piece of work? Don’t plough on for hours with work they find tricky….request 100% for a short time, revisit when they are ready to do so. Organise things: Bookbag (Who packs it? What needs to be in it? Where are they kept?) Get children to help pack away their clean clothes/dishes etc.

Getting your child to ask questions “…the best learners ask the best questions.” Encourage them to ask you what new vocabulary/words mean. Encourage them to ask ‘why?’ questions. Ask them ‘Why do you think that happened/works?’ Play: ‘Ask me a why/what/when/where question about my day’. When you answer questions, use correct vocabulary – this builds vocabulary and makes them feel very grown up. When you don’t know the answer, find out together – ask someone else OR look it up.

Helping your child to build confidence and self-esteem As standard… Praise them – celebrate every little step. Find jobs for them that they can succeed at and point out how well they’ve done. Encourage exploration Show them how much they’re able to do without you helping them. Reassure them you’re there when you need them. See things through…always make sure promises are kept so that they trust you.

Continued… When things are tricky… Remind them how far they’ve come and all they’ve learnt. Give them a token from you to keep close to them and give them strength at tricky times. You’re in my mind today…strategy for keeping you close and giving them confidence to try things. Reward things the family have done well this week.

Games to help learning Kim’s game – memory development (demonstrate) Eye spy – phonics. Boggle / hangman / scrabble. Patience (cards). Treasure hunt for something starting with each letter of alphabet. Be the first to spot… Altering stories to involve them. Writing letters / wish list to Santa. Writing a diary. Crosswords/word searches.

Online games to help learning: http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/PicnicOnPluto.html http://games.e4education.co.uk/ http://www.ictgames.com/resources.html http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

Ultimately… Learning should be fun! Learning should be life-long! Learning can be anywhere, with anyone and at any time! Your own awe and wonder for learning will rub off on your child and give them a hunger for learning, helping them have so much learning success.