School Years
What homework is actually for, by age
The evidence for homework varies enormously with age, and the arguments at home usually ignore that.
School Years
Homework, friendships, teachers and the logistics of term time.
21 articles · updated August 11, 2026 · page 1 of 2
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.
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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
Most playground fallings-out are not bullying, and the difference matters
Conflict, exclusion and shifting alliances are ordinary features of childhood friendship. Using one word for all of it makes the…
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
What a school can actually do about bullying, and what it cannot
Parents and schools usually want the same outcome and talk past each other. Knowing where the school’s powers stop changes what is…
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
The move to secondary school costs about a term
Attainment commonly dips at the transfer and then recovers. The predictable causes are organisational rather than academic.
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…