Home Learning Support for Parents
How to engage your child in Home Learning
Some handy hints and tips for parents who are struggling to get their child motivated.
We recognise how tough it can be for parents who are home-schooling their children and so our Home Learning Team is on-hand to support. Please see below for some hints and tips about how you can engage your child when they do their best to stubbornly refuse to get their work done!
- Use our marking and feedback service. Children are most effective when they know that their work is going to be looked at by a teacher.
- Establish a clear routine and share this with your child. Involve your child in some of this. Have open discussions about the importance of schoolwork and explain why your child needs to carry on working.
- Let the child feel that they are in control. Present the work for the day and let them choose the order in which they complete it.
- Use creative ways to let children decide their timetable. g. they could draw lollipop sticks with each activity for the day to help them decide what to do next.
- Break tasks down into small, digestible chunks. No more than half an hour without a break, if they re struggling.
- Be willing to take time off if it is not working out. It’s okay to accept sometimes that it is just not going to happen. Take a break and try again later.
- Have some non-negotiables for the day’s work and accept that anything outside of this can be left as part of your negotiation with your child. For example, if your child is finding the volume of work overwhelming, aim to just get some of the Reading work for the day complete. Gradually build upon this each day.
- Lavish your child with praise and rewards when they do what is expected of them. Visual manifestations of this using stickers or ticks can be really motivating, even for older children. Ideas for rewards – time outside, family time (e.g. movie nights at the weekend), sweets (keep these limited!), screen time, afternoons out.
- Enforce sanctions when your child does not do what is expected of them.
- Offer rewards at the end of each piece of work. E.g. complete your reading and you can have 15 minutes outside in the garden.
- Try to reduce screen-time as much as possible. If this is being used as a reward, save it for the end of the day. We find very little is achieved once the TV is turned on!
Some excellent tips on how to survive periods of Remote Learning and how to support your child's mental wellbeing can also be found here:
https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/news/2020/april/supporting-children-young-people-mental-health
https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/looking-after-yourself/coronavirus-and-mental-health/
https://www.racv.com.au/royalauto/living/at-home/home-school-remote-learning-tips.html
Above all, please contact us if you feel that you need support. Our Home Learning Team is on hand throughout the day via the email addresses below:
