10 Tips for Supporting Your Child with their Studies

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School can be a difficult time in a child’s life with so much going on around them and so many changes to adjust to. As a parent, there are a number of things that you can do to help make this time less stressful. We have teamed up with an international school in Hertfordshire to share some of these with you below.

Routine

Routine and structure are important for children. It helps to maintain a sense of normality as things around them change and ensures that they continue to lead healthy lives. Getting the right amount of sleep, eating the right foods and drinking enough water all contribute to a child’s ability to concentrate and retain information.

Conversations

Having conversations with your child about school is important. It communicates to them that what they are doing is important and helps them to take it seriously, whilst giving you the opportunity to aid where possible. Make sure they can always come to you with any concerns or worries about their education, especially during exam season.

Expectations

Having goals is good. It gives children something to work towards. Expectations, on the other hand, that are strict, rigid and unrealistic can do more harm than good, especially where their mental health is concerned. Try to avoid setting your child up to have a poor relationship with learning. As long as they always do their best, that’s all that matters.

Teachers

Make the most of the teaching staff that are available to help. Your child’s teachers in particular can help you to stay in the loop with how they are doing at school and offer you advice on how to support their learning at home if there are things that they struggle with.

Praise and Rewards

Children respond well to praise and encouragement. It’s a good motivator and gives them a buzz each time that they work towards or achieve something academic. Perhaps consider awarding small rewards whenever your child receives a good school report or exam grade. Just like praise, rewards can be great incentives for children to get their work done and have a more positive attitude towards their education. 

Firm But Fair

Going back to structure, it’s important that children have study time embedded into their routine and stick to it. Fun is just as important as studying, so a fair balance of both is needed in an everyday routine. Having plenty of breaks in between can help your child to stay refreshed and not burn out. 

Somewhere to Study

While your child respects your rules, it’s important for you and the rest of the family to be just as respectful to them when they are doing their work. Noise can definitely disrupt their learning, and setting up a peaceful study area in a quiet room can help them to concentrate. 

Time Management

At their age, your child may not yet know how to manage their time and prioritise. You can help them with this by learning about the work that they need to get done and helping to organise their diary or schedule. Having a family calendar or timetable on the wall can help with this, showing the times designated for homework, studying, playing, eating dinner etc. 

Learning Opportunities at Home

We all know how important it is for children to study at home and revisit what they have learned at school. But this doesn’t have to be boring! There are lots of fun learning opportunities all around you, from cooking to gardening, that can be explored. Perhaps you could encourage your child to expand their vocabulary by teaching them a new word a day, or let them use their maths skills to work out how much your next trip to the shops should cost. Utilise the world around you to help affirm their knowledge. 

Do you have any more tips? Let us know in the comments below. 

How to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

Essay writing is part and parcel of most academic subjects. It requires overall good English skills and an ability to articulate your ideas concisely, convincing the reader that you know what you’re talking about. Whether it’s your first time writing an essay or you’re just looking to brush up on your writing skills, here are some tips that we’ve put together, with help from a prep school in Surrey. Continue reading to learn how to improve on your essay writing skills.

Read The Question Carefully

Sounds simple enough but an easy mistake to make! It’s surprisingly easy to go down a rabbit hole when completing an essay question and stray away from the intended subject (or even misunderstand it completely). 

To save you the heartbreak of having to re-do an essay, always dissect your questions so that you clearly understand what it is that you need to write about. Highlight any command words that you can see such as “explain”, “identify”, “analyse” and so on as well as any key themes mentioned. 

You should also make it a habit to refer back to the question while writing, to not only show the marker that it’s being answered but also yourself. Teachers are very helpful too and should be able to offer guidance on what they’re expecting from you so that you know that you’re on the right lines.

Read Model Answers

Knowing where to start is often the trickiest part of writing an essay. It can be a big undertaking and having an idea of how to go about it can help you to overcome this obstacle. Other essay examples can be a great source of inspiration, especially if you’ve not written one before. They can help you to gauge an understanding of what yours should look like in terms of structure, the kind of language to use and so on. 

Read, Read and Read Again

Proofreading is essential for writing any form of literature. When writing from the top of your head, your main priority is to write down all that you can remember and not your spelling (or any part of SPAG for that matter). It’s only when you go back and reread, that you’re horrified by what you’ve written. Doing so will give you the opportunity to correct any mistakes and fine tune your work to make it less wordy and easier to read.

Even so, there is still the risk of mistakes slipping through the net as when we read our work back, we tend to do so the way that things should be written. Having friends and family (or even a proofreading tool) look over your work can help to make sure that everything is fine on the grammatical front for that added piece of mind.

Use Active Voice as Opposed to Passive Voice

While we’re on the topic of “wordiness”, using active voice in your writing can help to make it more concise and less complicated for readers. Fewer words are also used which gives you more to work with if you’re running short on them. Here’s an example:

Sentence 1: The cat was chasing the mouse. 

Sentence 2: The mouse was being chased by the cat.

Sentence 1 uses active voice and, as you can see, communicates what it needs to with the fewest words.

Good Vocabulary Makes for Great Essays

Having varied vocabulary throughout your essay can help to make it more engaging, your words more impactful and communicate what you need to in the most effective manner. A thesaurus can help with this, although it's important to not just throw in big words for the sake of it. You may find that your sentences lose their meaning entirely and don’t make sense.

Plan

Structure is just as important. It helps to create flow and takes the reader through a journey. If this isn’t quite right, jumpy and things aren’t in the right order, they will end up confused. Once you have an idea as to what you’re writing about, create a plan/skeleton that you can use to map out your points. This will ensure that no important points are missed and that your essay is easy to follow.

Leave the Introduction for Last

It’s a strange concept to get your head around but it can help you to create a powerful introduction as you will know exactly what you’re introducing. It can also save you time. As mentioned before, the hardest part is often starting and not having to create an introduction can take some weight off so that you can focus on the actual substance.

Evidence

Finally, an essay is a piece of writing that aims to convince its readers to think a certain way. It’s recommended to have lots of different arguments for this reason to strengthen your case. This can’t be done without good evidence, which takes research and analytical skills to gather from various sources. Remember, not all evidence is good evidence. To make your point clearly and effectively, choose the strongest pieces to go with and consider their validity.

Do you have any other essay writing tips? Let us know in the comments below.