At the annual education conference, I met inspirational speaker, Dr Stephen Curran, who enlightened us all. He particularly focused on the aspect that every child can learn and achieve their higher full potential, and we, as teachers, must not place limitations on children’s learning. We must teach children effective strategies and develop solid foundations, before we progress onto further challenging topics. I gave this some thought and realised that we sometimes find that children in year 6 can’t do their times tables, so we begin to teach times tables to 12 and then follow onto long multiplication and division techniques.
It’s a matter of connecting with children, instilling the passion and energy to make a child believe in themselves and this no doubt comes from inspirational teachers, who want to instil a vision in our younger learners.
In particular, we find high achieving models of learning in Singapore, compare the standards to the UK and we see that we are far behind their system of learning. Children there are exceeding their goals.
Reading is a vital skill and getting your child to read at home is critically important. Develop their interest in learning, by getting them to read some classic titles, some engaging books I recommend are the Harry Potter books, Narnia, War Horse and Lord of the Rings. If you are thinking of sending your child to a private school or advancing their reading skills further, one question they might ask at the interview stage is, what books has your child read? And listening to your child read out loud at home is an excellent practise to further develop their confidence in reading.
