January 2015

Creativity can come in any shape or form. Your child can use their imagination or creativity in an amazing Lego construction, or use the recycling to make a robot, drawing a beautiful picture, planting seeds in the garden or baking a cake.  How do you use your imagination and creativity to express yourself?

Getting lost in a great book is an experience like no other.  High-quality stories transport children to lands that their imaginations have not even dreamt of yet. However, more importantly, experiencing these stories empowers all readers (and listeners) to feel the confidence to express themselves.

It’s time for parents to dust off those lockdown manuals and set about preparing family life for that dizzying mix of work and home learning. Dr Kathy Weston shares her top tips and practical advice.

Last year, teacher Rosie Bloom contacted us with something very special: a book that she wrote and illustrated (with design from Paula Aubury) during the first lockdown period. We are thrilled that Rosie has allowed us to share the story, Hedgehog Wants a Hug, on this blog.

Whether you’re in the classroom or teaching online, our resources are here to help you carry on teaching, learning and supporting your pupils wherever they are.

Watch Shareen Wilkinson's Vlog, breaking down and unpicking some of the trickiest aspects of grammar. 

With school closures continuing and schools looking for resources to help teachers and students cope, Adam Chase, author of our Switched on Computing digital resources has put together some suggestions for ways that Switched on Computing can help you and your pupils, no matter where they're learning. 

Everyone in the country has been, and is continuing to be, affected by COVID-19 and the real impact on children’s education will take a while to be fully understood. Education expert and author, Siobhan Skeffington, discusses the importance of RS Assessment’s white paper and why it's an unbelievably valuable tool if you want to gage a snapshot of the impact of COVID-19 so far.

By this time of year we have usually spent numerous hours analysing the latest test papers and drawing out implications for teaching for the new academic year. This year, of course, is so very different but there is still a lot we can learn from the assessments we have seen so far.

After the school closures, it seems that KS2 assessments are going ahead this year. Therefore, what do pupils need to know and understand? We asked Shareen Wilkinson (Mayers) to share her thoughts and ideas. 

Please also see Shareen’s blog on preparing for the reading paper, where she highlights key strategies for embedding learning that are applicable for teaching grammar. Here are some top tips to help you to begin with: