{"id":648,"date":"2018-05-02T14:14:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T14:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/?page_id=648"},"modified":"2025-11-13T09:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:59:07","slug":"general-tips","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/general-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"General tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/education.gov.scot\/parentzone\">Parentzone Scotland<\/a>\u00a0is an excellent website from Education Scotland that is full of resources and ideas on how you can support your child through their educational journey.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">Here are some helpful hints about how to engage with your child and their learning:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Listen, talk, and encourage \u2013 this\u00a0can have\u00a0a big influence on children\u2019s learning<\/li>\n<li>Encourage your child to talk to you about their learning, what learning is happening at school and do what you can at home to build on that.<\/li>\n<li>Talk to your child about their strengths and interests and how they are progressing.<\/li>\n<li>Encourage your child to talk to you about their next steps in learning and find out how you can work with the school to support this<\/li>\n<li>Ask for help if you think your child needs it for any reason.<\/li>\n<li>Praise your child if he\/she is working hard at something or has achieved something within or out of school.<\/li>\n<li>Encourage any reading.<\/li>\n<li>Look for opportunities at home to develop <a href=\"https:\/\/education.gov.scot\/parentzone\/learning-at-home\/supporting-literacy-at-home\/\">literacy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/education.gov.scot\/parentzone\/learning-at-home\/supporting-numeracy\">numeracy<\/a> skills: money, number problems, time, measuring, matching, size, reading, writing, understanding instructions, questioning information.<\/li>\n<li>Encourage your child to take part in activities, for example hobbies or clubs which will provide opportunities to develop a range of skills.<\/li>\n<li>Help them work on tasks on their own and then talk about it with you afterwards.<\/li>\n<li>Do things together where appropriate \u2013 learn together, for example if your child has a project or task to do, take an interest and discuss with them what they are doing or offer support if this is needed.<\/li>\n<li>Help prepare for change, particularly at key transitions \u2013 talk about the change together.<\/li>\n<li>Talk to your child about how they are feeling.<\/li>\n<li>Work together with the school by taking part in discussions about your child\u2019s learning and progress, for example at <a href=\"https:\/\/education.gov.scot\/parentzone\/my-school\/parents-meetings\/\">parents\u2019 evenings<\/a>\u00a0or reviews.<\/li>\n<li>Talk about what you\u2019re doing as you carry out everyday tasks like making lunch\/dinner, washing up etc.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Point out all of the things you see around you when you\u2019re out at the park, on the way to school, at the supermarket etc.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Look at your child when you and they are talking \u2013 it shows that you are interested in what they have to say.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0If your child says something incorrectly instead of correcting, say it back in the correct way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\"><strong>Parental Hints and Tips to Help your Child Achieve their best!<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">Encourage your child to pack their own bag for school.\u00a0 Give them a <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">written or a verbal <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">list <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">of items <\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">to he<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">lp them remember what they need!<\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun Underlined SCX67089919\" xml:lang=\"EN-GB\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX67089919\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li>Encourage your child to take responsibility for jobs around the house which are appropriate for their age e.g. make their bed, clean their bedroom, wash\/dry the dishes, make their packed lunch\/dinner with you etc.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0If your child finds it hard to tidy their room, be more detailed.\u00a0 For example, give them 3 or 4 tasks to complete: put dirty clothes in the wash basket, fold clean clothes and put them away, make your bed and tidy toys away into the box.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Swap time on the computer or watching TV for 20 minutes of reading.\u00a0 A comic or a magazine or a book \u2013 whatever they fancy!<\/li>\n<li>Encourage your child to get involved in making decisions about things that affect them e.g. what you do at the weekends, what you have for dinner etc.\u00a0 This will make them fell involved in family life and that their ideas matter.\u00a0 If their suggestions are not possible, be honest and discuss them and where possible, incorporate some of their suggestions.\u00a0 Use phrases including:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cSo what do you think we should do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe choice is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat don\u2019t you try that on your own this time?\u201d<\/p>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff\">These are some things to think about when talking\/spending time together with <strong>younger children<\/strong>:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Read lots of stories, rhymes and songs together!<\/li>\n<li>Make up your own stories together. Use funny voices for characters and act them out!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are some things to think about when talking\/spending time together with <strong>older children<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Play board\/card games together.<\/li>\n<li>Watch Newsround together and talk about what you think\/how you felt about one of the articles. We do this at school so your child will be used to and good at this and you can learn together!<\/li>\n<li>Talk about their day as you do things around the house together e.g. washing up, eating. This is more relaxing for your child and takes the pressure off them to speak as they\u2019re also doing something else. If this is tricky to begin with remember two things: 1. Use the language they use and 2. Ask them to be more specific.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Try asking questions such as:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was the best question you asked today?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was the best\/funniest\/strangest\/most exciting\/worst thing that happened to you today?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you looking forward to tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Was there anything that you didn\u2019t understand at school today?<\/p>\n<p>Ask your child to teach you something that they learned today because that\u2019s the way they learn most effectively and they\u2019ll remember 90% of what they\u2019ve learned!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parentzone Scotland\u00a0is an excellent website from Education Scotland that is full of resources and ideas on how you can support your child through their educational journey. &nbsp; Here are some helpful hints about how to engage with your child and their learning: Listen, talk, and encourage \u2013 this\u00a0can have\u00a0a big influence on children\u2019s learning Encourage &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/general-tips\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">General tips<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9555,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-648","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5774,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/648\/revisions\/5774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/gc\/stbrendans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}