A Parents’ Guide To The Key Stage 2 Curriculum

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A child’s education is divided into four key stages; Key Stage 2 is taught to pupils aged 7-11 in Years 3 to 6. If you’re a parent of a child in this age range, you probably have some questions about the curriculum and what your child is learning about in their lessons. A prep school in Leatherhead have put together the following guide to help parents understand the KS2 curriculum a little better.

How To Get More Involved With Your Child's Schooling

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Taking the time to read this post shows that you're keen to get involved with your child's education. It shows that you care about your child’s success, their comfort in their education, and that you are willing to make a difference. Many parents simply haven’t the time, means or maybe just don't want to do something like this, so you should pat yourself on the back for even trying!

Why You Should Attend School Open Days

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When it comes to choosing a new school for your child, attending open days a huge part of the process and one that shouldn’t be neglected. Touring the school and getting a feel for it in person is really important and can help make or break your decision. A prep school in Surrey explore the benefits of attending a school open day below.

The Importance Of Sports Day In Schools

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Summer is here and that means many schools are preparing for their sports day activities, but what exactly is sports day and why is it such a big part of school life? 

St. Hilda’s School in Harpenden have put together some of the key benefits of sports day and explain why this special day should be celebrated by students, staff and parents…

Helping Your Child Develop Their Social Skills

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Social skills are essential to a child’s development. Well established social skills can not only help with friendships and personal relationships, but they can also support your child throughout their life and in their future careers. Some children are naturally very sociable, while others may need a helping hand to build these invaluable skills. 

There are many ways in which you can help your children to improve their social skills. Oaks International School have put together the following advice for parents…

Helping Your Child Perform Well At School

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We all want our children to perform well at school and most schools take pride in their ability to work with parents to identify and nurture their pupils’ potential. Below are a couple of tips from a private school in Hertfordshire on what you can be doing at home to help support your child to perform well at school.

The Importance Of School Trips

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School trips are an essential part of your child’s learning. They not only help to consolidate and contextualise the learning that has taken place within the classroom but they give your child the opportunity to explore and extend their understanding of what is being taught in a completely different environment. This helps bring leaning to life!

How To Identify Your Child’s Learning Style

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As parents we are actively keen to support our children’s development as best we can in order for them to reach their full potential and for them to experience success. The question is, how can you identify your child’s learning style in order to best support their learning journey? 

A private school in New York have put together the following information and advice to help.

How to Study Medicine at University

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The NHS has been a big part of our families lives. Caring for my sister and her premature twins, our fertility treatment and Mum's cancer treatments have all shaped and changed our family. Throw in fixing of breaks and sprains, hip and knee replacements, and our family has definitely had our share of NHS care and treatments!

What if you or your child decide to study medicine?

Understanding the Key Stage 4 Curriculum

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If you’re a parent, there have probably been many occasions where you’ve reflected on everything you’re supposed to know about your child’s education and its left you feeling quite overwhelmed. Maybe you and your little ones are getting ready for Reception like we were last year, or maybe they'll be prepping for SATS or GCSE's, either way it can be hard to know how to best support your child through the process. With a big step for your child's future being GCSE's, I have teamed up with a Sixth Form in Hertfordshire to help parents of Key Stage 4 aged students so that they can have a better understanding of the overall curriculum and how it works.

The Importance of Outdoor Learning

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Outdoor learning offers a variety of benefits to young children and it’s undeniably an essential part of their education. Most importantly, it teaches children that learning can happen both inside and outside of the classroom; there is something to learn in everything around us. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum actually insists on outdoor experiences on a daily basis. Taunton School explore the advantages of outdoor learning below. 

5 Ways To Show Appreciation To Your Child’s Teachers

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Teachers spend every day of their lives shaping the future of our young people. They work hard for their students to help them grow and develop by encouraging and influencing them throughout their education. With this in mind, it’s hugely important for students and their parents to show gratitude towards teachers so that they know how much they are appreciated. This is particularly important at the end of the academic year, when many students move into different tutor groups or even different schools altogether. I have teamed up with St Catherine’s School to prepare the following list of ways you can show teachers you appreciate them.

4 Signs Your Child Is Unhappy At School

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Life can be full of ups and downs; everyone can feel unhappy sometimes including our children. It can be extremely worrying when you are unsure how your children are feeling especially when they are away from you at nursery or school. 

Easy Ways We're Practicing Phonics

Starting school can be a big transition for children and learning to read and write is a big part of that. Many children find it easy to to get to grips with their new learning experience but lots find it hard.

The Breastfeeding Journey That Never Was

Breast is best. Fed is best. Bottles share the parenting load. Combo feeding is better in the long run.

When you're pregnant a lot of these statements are thrown around. Whether it be friends, family, your midwife or Barbara who lives down the road and you sometimes see in Tesco, everyone has an opinion on breastfeeding. Modern approaches, traditional methods, when I was pregnant with JJ I heard every single one of them!

But what if you want to breastfeed and you simply can't? 

Our Favourite Baby & Toddler Books

We love a good book and since JJ was a tiny tot he's loved being read to. Whether it be at home or nursery, out and about or at Granny's, he will often have a book with him. We even have a selection of his favourite books in our caravan for when we're away!

Like many kids though, JJ would get obssessed with a book and we would read it over and over for a week. This lead me to create our Book of the Week posts, where I shared our current obsession and there's some very random choices.

5 Things You Need To Battle The Chickenpox

Disclaimer - I'm just a mum trying her best and am in no shape or form a medical professional. If you're concerned about your child's health please seek professional medical advice.

It'll be no surprise to those of you that follow me on Instagram that my latest blog post is about chickenpox!!

Just over a week ago we spotted the first few spots on JJ as we started to get ready for his friend's birthday party. As the afternoon went on there were more and more and soon enough they were everywhere! We had a really scary experience with JJ a few months ago were his temperature was out of control and he was monitored through the night by a GP via the 111 service and was very nearly admitted to hospital. With this in mind I was keen to get things under control and keep him as well as possible.

Using advice from the NHS website and from those that had recently had it themselves or children had, we complied our essentials for battling chickenpox.

6 Facts About Fertility Everyone Should Know

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Regular readers will know that this blog first started as diary of our fertility struggle and I've recently decided to do more posts on the subject. Fertility is something lots of people struggle with and I'm a strong believe in being open about our journey and to stop the subject being taboo.

If you’re currently trying for a baby, or would like to start a family at some point in the future, you’ll find the following infographic particularly helpful. It contains six facts about fertility that have been compiled by a fertility clinic in London and may help you improve your chances of conception.

How To Help Your Child Learn A Foreign Language

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Learning a language can open up a whole new world for your children. But where should you start? Mill Hill School share their top tips on how you can help lay the foundations for your child’s foreign language learning success…



Start early

The earlier you introduce a second language, the easier it will be for your child to learn it later on. Start by introducing your chosen language to your child by learning a few words at a time.

As soon as your child starts to learn new words and begins to develop their vocabulary, start to point out to your child that food, animals and objects can all have two names. You can also use children’s music and television shows in a second language to encourage learning.

Use flashcards or labels

Using flashcard or labeling objects around your house is a quick and easy way to help your children learn the names of everyday items in another language. Simply purchase a pack of ready-made flashcards or make your own labels using sticky notes and a bold marker.

Reading the labels, whenever your child spots them around your home, will help them to store the names of the objects in their memory.

Online lessons and apps

There are many useful and often free online courses and apps that will allow your child to learn from the comfort of their own home. These resources can help to make learning a new language more fun and engaging for children by using interactive games.

These simple starting points will help to provide the essential language learning tools.

Learning languages doesn’t need to be a tiresome task. It is important to make the process fun and interesting for children. Try to incorporate language learning into your everyday lifestyle and use fun activities to increase attention and focus.

Mummy Snowy Owl
xx

Giving Conception The Best Start With Dr Fertility

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When I first started blogging 7 years ago it was all about our fertility struggle. It was an outlet for my emotions and a diary of our journey into eventual parenthood.

Becoming parents was a long road for us. Hospital referrals, two lap and dyes, endometriosis diagnosis, cauterisation, tube flush, repeated miscarriage and a round of Clomid, finally resulted in us having our wonderful, albeit a little feral and crazy, redheaded boy.

It was an incredibly hard 6 years of trying to conceive and at the time it was very lonely and isolating time, but when I began to be more open, I found others were too. The support of a select few then helped us through the darker days. Opening up the conversation helped both myself and others speak more freely about trying to conceive and the different struggles to do so.