School Years
Reading with a child beats reading to them
The gap between the two is small in effort and large in outcome, and it is one of the better-evidenced things in early education.
Hana Kirilova
Education writer, Things Parents Know
Hana taught for eleven years and now writes about school from the parent side of the desk.
Contact Hana through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
18 articles
Early Years
Separation anxiety arrives because something went right
A baby who was happy with anyone and then suddenly is not has just acquired a new cognitive skill. It is miserable, and it is a…
Early Years
The nap that disappears takes the whole afternoon with it
Nap transitions are the least discussed and most disruptive part of the early years timetable, and there is a long stretch where…
School Years
School readiness is mostly the coat, the toilet and the lunchbox
Teachers of the youngest classes are close to unanimous about what makes a first term easier, and it is almost never reading or…
School Years
Ten minutes with a teacher, and how to get something out of it
The default appointment produces warm reassurance and no information. Three specific questions change what you leave with.
School Years
Saying you were rubbish at maths costs your child more than you think
Maths anxiety transmits between adults and children, and it works by consuming exactly the mental resource the problem needed.
School Years
Morning school refusal usually has one specific thing behind it
A child who will not go to school is rarely refusing school in general. Finding the specific hour, person or place is what makes it…
School Years
Three activities a week is not three times better than one
The case for structured activities is real and it saturates quickly. The cost falls on the parts of the week that stop existing.
School Years
How to ask a school for extra help without it becoming a fight
Support systems differ enormously by country, and nearly all of them reward specific observations, written records and patience…
School Years
The school laptop is also the distraction machine
Schoolwork and the most carefully engineered attention traps ever built now live on the same screen. That is a design problem, not…
Early Years
Toddler groups are for the adult too, and that is a good enough reason
The stated purpose is play and socialisation. The reliable value in the first years is usually that one adult gets to speak to…
School Years
The packed lunch is a five-minute decision you make two hundred times
The difficulty is not making one lunch. It is making the same decision every evening for years, which is why a fixed rotation beats…
School Years
School trips: the form, the money and the child who does not want to go
A trip arrives as a letter with a deadline and a request for money. The parts that cause trouble are the ones the letter does not…
School Years
Wraparound care is the invisible half of the school day
The school day is shorter than the working day, and the gap is filled by arrangements nobody explains. Sorting them out is a term’s…
School Years
The class group chat is two things at once, and one of them is useful
It is the fastest way to find out that tomorrow is a non-uniform day, and the fastest way to acquire an opinion about a teacher you…
School Years
Term dates arrive in pieces, and the year has to be assembled by you
No single document tells you when your household will need cover. It is spread across term dates, training days, trips and events…
School Years
Moving a child to a new school is a social problem before an academic one
The lessons will be fine within a few weeks. What takes longer is arriving somewhere every friendship group was formed two years…
School Years
School reports are written in a register, and it can be read
A report is written to be accurate, defensible and readable by a hundred families. Knowing what it is constrained to do tells you…