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Writer's pictureRachel

School's out! Top tips to get a head start in the next year in primary school...

Updated: Aug 7




School's almost out for summer in the UK. Parents have done the last pile of ironing and started throwing away the old shirts, t-shirts and socks after each wear as they count down to the end of term; the lunchbox snacks are running out; shoes have holes in, and the water bottles with the chewed straws are on their last refills.


Some families will be glad to see the end of the homework, take a break from filling out the reading records, and pause asking times tables questions, but others might want to use the holidays to get ready and make a head start with learning for the next school year.


All Ages


While the content below relates very much to academic learning and in particular, English and maths, there's so much more to the curriculum. At the time of writing, it's been announced this week that the new Education Secretary is looking into how narrow the curriculum has become for children in the UK. This is true but reading, writing and maths will continue to be core skills that enable access to most other areas of the curriculum in some ways.


Gross and fine motor activities are important for all children so lots of opportunities to run, climb, play outside, roll down hills, ride bikes, play ball games and be silly will help with the gross motor skills, and playing with Lego, baking, making playdough, decorating biscuits, sewing (lots of lovely kits are available in Hobbycraft), painting, drawing and playing games with small parts will help with fine motor skills. Hanging out the washing even helps little fingers as they manipulate pegs so play can be useful, too!


There are often lots of ideas for local activities, events and things to do on your local Mumbler site. I do some work for Ryedale and Thirsk Mumbler, and Scarborough and Whitby Mumbler, and there are pages of ideas on there that provide plenty of ideas for rainy days as well as days out. https://ryedale.mumbler.co.uk/34-things-to-do-indoors-on-a-rainy-day/


By the end of primary school, children need to be able to swim 25m, which is the length of a standard swimming pool. Fitting in a trip to your local pool each week can provide a fairly cheap activity that involves lots of learning, even if that's just getting your socks back on with slightly wet feet!


Taking a break from formal learning is really important but the sections below offer ideas if you would like to sneak in some extra learning in the holiday. Below is a guide to some of the things that are coming up for your primary-aged children with ideas for things you can do to introduce new learning or work back to consolidate learning from the previous year. Scroll down to the appropriate year group for your child and then to the additional links at the bottom.


Starting Reception


There are lots of contrasting ideas about school readiness but every child is different and what it means to be ready for school for one can be totally different for another. Encouraging a little independence, giving your child opportunities to make choices, and engaging them in conversation are three ways you can help to prepare them to take their next big step.


Children starting in reception don't have to know the alphabet, be able to write their name, or tell you the answer to 5 + 5, but you can give your child a head start by playing with language: enjoy rhyming stories, and make strings of rhyming words; manipulate sounds in words, e.g. say each other's names with sound or syllable missing; make up rhyming names (like Fernie Wernie and Hettie Betty); play with alliteration (e.g. cheeky chimp, silly sausage); notice and describe environmental sounds (such as the spinning of the washing machine or a plane in the sky); play percussion instruments or make sounds with your hands and feet, and practise blending sounds into words like c-a-t cat. There's more information about this in the blogs below, and in an old but useful publication from the Department for Education, called Letters and Sounds.





Counting aloud and singing number rhymes can help to develop an understanding of number, and using maths in your everyday routines can help to develop conceptual knowledge: counting the knives and forks needed at the table; counting the steps as you go upstairs; looking for numbers when out and about, and showing different numbers of fingers (counting them on your nose!) can all demonstrate ways to use numbers.


Sharing stories and learning nursery rhymes can help all children to get off to a good start at school. It's said to be true that 'if a child knows eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they are four, they are usually among the best readers and spellers in their class by the time they are eight.' You could visit the library throughout the holiday, practising being quiet and respectful with books and joining in with the many activities they often offer, and even accessing audiobooks for free (see the blog linked at the bottom of this page).


Other activities that develop skills towards the learning children will do in school include: colouring, drawing, painting, Play-doh, digging in the mud, building with Lego, baking, singing, dancing, dressing up, running, jumping, throwing and catching, talking on the phone, hunting for bugs, pouring, playing games...and all the things you'll do in your day to day routines.


Screens get bad press at the moment but there are some good aspects to screentime. CBeebies Bedtime Stories are excellent for adding an extra story into your child's day, and apps like Teach Your Monster to Read or Numberblocks offer gentle introductions to key concepts in English and maths.


Starting Year One


Everyone is well practised in going to school now and the time has come to leave the Early Years Foundation Stage and head into the National Curriculum, Key Stage One (years one and two). Parents and children are often nervous about the shift to a more formal learning style; check with your child's school to find out what their approach will be. Some schools continue play-based learning throughout Key tage One, where others might phase it out quite quicky. Trust that the teachers know how to support children from play-based to table-based learning and will enable a smooth transition so there's no need to worry.


Phonics continues to be a key focus in year one as children are learning to read then reading to learn. Schools will be working towards the Phonic Screening Check which is a national assessment that takes place in June. This is part of the day-to-day learning for children so there is no extra stress for them. You may see lots of alien words, nonesense words or made up words as these are used in the check to ensure children can use phonics skills to blend sounds into words. You can see a sample of the check words here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2022-materials 


It's important to remember that children don't need to learn to read nonesense words by sight or off by heart.  Encourage them to say the sounds then say the word and move onto the next one. If you'd like to help with sight reading, you can use the common exception words and any other tricky words or red words that come home from school, such as the High Frequency Words: https://www.highfrequencywords.org. There are lots of suggestions for using these words in the blogs linked at the bottom of this page.


As always, keep reading stories and if you haven't already, you could introdice audiobooks which expose children to a level of comprehension that is above their word reading level. See the blog link below for more information about the benefits of audiobooks.


Sneaking writing opportunities into the holidays will help your child to continue developing the muscles in their hands and to keep up their newly found skills for writing with the sounds they know. You might encourage your child to keep a holiday diary, or write your weekly shopping list, or even to write short stories.


In maths, it's important to keep including practical maths in your routines but you could also be learning number bonds (pairs of numbers that make a given total, especially 5 and 10), counting in 2s, 5s and 10s, and recognising one and two-digit numbers. Look for shapes around the house and out and about, making a distinction between 2D (flat) and 3D (solid) shapes. You can also experiement with measuring, comparing objects directly, measuring in hands, feet or cubes, then in centimetres or metres.


For topic-based learning, go with your child's interests at this stage but you could also check your child's school website to see if there are any topic overviews to show what they will be learning about and start to talk about these.


Starting Year Two


Moving into year two can be daunting because of the perceived pressure of SATs but there's really no need to worry. SATs in year two are now optional for schools, and they are usually used in a really gentle and stress-free way to enable them to contribute to the overall assessment judgments that teachers need to make at the end of year two, which is the end of Key Stage One. Those children who did not meet the threshold score (usually 32) in their phonics check will take it again in year two so it is important to continue practising decoding/blending sounds to make words during year two. This blog might be useful here: https://rachmackay.wixsite.com/wilburandflops/post/should-parents-be-worried-about-key-stage-1-sats


You can help your child to make a good start in year two by going over the common exception words from year one, and looking at those from year two. See the blog linked at the bottom of this page for access to the words and ideas to support using them at home. For example, you could have a word of the day, or put a few words up the stairs to read, say or spell on the way by. The high frequency words work well here, too - see the link in the year one section above.


As in year one, exciting opportunities to sneak in a bit of writing will help to keep up your child's skills over the holiday. Remember that girls are often more keen to write than boys! All children might like to start learning to touch type with BBC Dancemat Typing! https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z3c6tfr


Making up stories, both verballly and written, will help your child to prepare for the next step in writing. It's important to keep reading to them as this is how you can grow their vocabularies and understanding of sentence structure. Audiobooks are great here, too - see the blog linked at the bottom of this page.


Getting into Horrible Histories can help with an interest in different topics in history, and BBC Bitesize holds a huge range of videos and activities that might capture your child's interest whilst supporting the topics and skills they may cover at school in a range of subjects. Watching Newsround on CBBC might spark interesting conversations at home and an interest in current affairs.


Starting Year Three


Children are now moving into Key Stage Two of the National Curriculum (years three to six) and for some, this can be a big step. The curriculum is progressive, and builds on learning from years one and two so making sure the foundations are in place can help your child to settle in well in year three.


There are no national assessments in year three. The next one is in year four, when children take their multiplication check. Your child will have begun learning times tables in years one and two, so these really pick up the pace in year three. It's important to learn times tables as groups of numbers first, so using bricks, marbles, sultanas or sweets can help with conceptual understanding, e.g. showing 3 x 5 as three groups of five or five groups of three with objects. For online learning, Hit the Button is good for quick fire questions, https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button and Times Tables Rock Stars offers a paid app for practising. https://ttrockstars.com 


Children might be reading independently by now but keep going with stories above their word reading level as these will help to expand vocabularies and develop comprehension. There's a link to a blog about the benefits of audiobooks at the bottom of this page.  Talk about stories and books, and make up stories, giving an opportunity to practise language structures without always having to write them down.


Writing is good to practise, if your child is keen, and sneaking opportunities into your holiday can help to keep writing skills going over the break. Making lists of things to pack in your suitcase, posters about litter (or poo!) picking or local events might spark interest.


As in year two above, Horrible Histories and BBC Bitesize provide opportunities to expand topic-based learning and there are lots of local days out where children can learn about local history, animals, sea life etc, depending on what is in your area.


Starting Year Four


Year four sees the multiplication check so a lot of emphasis will be placed on learning times tables and being able to answer each question within six seconds, ready for the test itself in June. Games from Hit the Button can help, as can Times Tables Rock Stars (links above).


Topmarks maths games are still fun when you're in year four and you can recap learning from previous year groups or sneak ahead! https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16


Keep reading in preparation for year four, and use fiction and on-fiction texts to expand vocabularies. Writing stories, diaries or pretend newspapers can offer opportunities to keep up the writing skills over the summer, and accessing topics of interest on BBC Bitesize can help.


Recapping spelling rules from previous years by using Spelling Frame is a good way of consolidating learning, https://spellingframe.co.uk and trying some maths problems from nrich might be fun: https://nrich.maths.org/primary .


Starting Year Five


Compared to the other years, year five is quite unremarkable! There are no national tests but children will start to work towards the end of Key Stage Two so the pace picks up a little more. Look back to year four for ideas or ahead to year six in this blog.


Top picks include Spelling Frame, nrich, Top Marks, Hit the Button, and BBC Dance Mat Typing (links are above and below).


In year five, your child will start to learn more about reproduction in sex and relationships lessons so you may want to start conversations around this to prepare your child and yourself! There might be a policy on your school website that you can look at to know what's coming!


As always, keep up the reading!


Starting Year Six


You're nearly there! This is the last year of primary school and you may be feeling more nervous than your offspring! Be sure to plan in visits to the local secondary school open evenings and be ready to submit your school preferences by the end of October. The dates might be available on individual school websites now.


Learning-wise, it's good to consolidate everything from the years outlined already, and to practise reading, writing and maths in many different forms. Any of these books are useful: https://amzn.to/3Sfbjp8 as well as BBC Bitesize videos and activities.


Talking about books is really helpful, to enable children to formulate answers to questions. You could try using the Reading Vipers questions to stimulate book talk: https://www.literacyshedblog.com/uploads/1/2/5/7/12572836/ks2_reading_vipers.pdf 


Recapping the common exception words from previous years of the curriculum will be useful, and playing the games on Spelling Frame will enable these to be practised: https://spellingframe.co.uk 


Trying out a few science experiments from TheDadLab (find this on Facebook) could be exciting, and definitely broadening vocabulary with a range of stories and non-fiction books available from the library.


Moving On


Our son took the big step to secondary school last year and it's amazing how quickly they settle in and get used to things like spending too much on lunch, eating too many sweets, and forgetting to empty out their PE bag at the weekend! Hold on to the primary years as they fly by so quickly!


One funny story to finish on, thinking about growing independence as they move on to secondary school, is about a smell I detected recently in my son's room. I was sniffing all over the place, just like one of the dog from Julia Donaldson's Detective Dog story (https://amzn.to/3xYb3nv)! I couldn't find the culprit so I returned later, even more determined. After sniffing every possible item of PE kit, every trainer etc. I found it...


The remains of a jar of Cumin which had not been closed properly in the bag he had used to take his cookery things to school for his food technology lesson! Urgh! Independence is amazing but sometimes it backfires! Cumin in the bedroom is not a great scent!


Enjoy the holidays and, if you can sneak in a little learning, it will help with the start back to school in September, but if not, have a great time - fun times are always learning times!


Here are some other useful blogs, mentioned above:







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