One moment you’re holding your newborn baby in your arms, the next moment, they’re starting school and there is a tight knot in your stomach as you wave goodbye to them in their slightly too big uniform. As a parent, no one warns you quite how anxious you are at this moment. Will they make friends? Will they cope OK with the schoolwork? Will they be happy?

Why now?

Early June might seem like an odd time to be worrying about this, but it is in fact a sensible time to start planning some groundwork to help ensure your child’s early primary school years are a success.  

This year’s intake of primary school children have had an incredibly difficult start already. In the last two years, most children have missed out on large periods of socialisation. They’ve also missed quite lot of early years work done at nursery or pre-school where they start to learn the foundation skills which they will build on and develop as they start school. With the best will in the world, filing the gaps left by Covid is not going to be easy.

Getting started

There is no shame in acknowledging that your child may need some extra support this year. After all, there’s a lot to absorb in Key Stage 1.  

In English this may take the form of getting into the habit of reading and listening, practising those fine motor skills by colouring and getting to grips with phonics.

In maths, your child has got to start understanding numbers up to 20 and beyond, learn number bonds and start seeing how numbers are used in everyday life.

Or, your child may just need help building their confidence in a social setting with lots of other children.

Finally, as a parent, you may find yourself having to get to grips with a way of teaching that isn’t familiar to you. Number bonds? Fronted adverbials? What are they?

How we can help

We offer a summer programme which is based around three key pillars. Firstly, learning should be fun. Secondly, learning should be based around the national curriculum and thirdly, everything we do should help build your child’s confidence.   

Your child will be given their own workbooks and our learning is focused on building the key skills of literacy and numeracy, as well as building positive study habits and boosting their confidence. It’s not too intense but is designed to ensure your child starts the new academic year from a position of strength, rather than struggling to keep up.

Places are limited, but if you’d like to book your child’s place now, please get in touch with your local centre or call us for more information.