Pupil and School Support
Supporting Children and Young People at School and at Home
All children learn best when they feel happy, safe, and nurtured. Children learn at different rates, and they prefer to be taught in a variety of different ways. Your home is not the same as the classroom environment, so you may need to find out what works best for you and your child at home.
Supporting Learning at Home
Please see the following guidance on how you can support your child with maths, reading, and writing whilst at home.
Maths
There are 3 leaflets available from PSS each offering different ways you can support your child with their maths at home.
Maths Leaflet One
Included within maths leaflet one are suggestions for activities to support your child if they are working towards early maths skills such as:
- Recognising numbers and quantities to ten
- Saying which number is one more or one less than a given number to 10
- Using objects to support adding and subtracting up to ten
Maths Leaflet Two
These activities are suggested to support your child or young person if they are working towards developing the skills to:
- Recognise and write numbers up to 100
- To add/subtract ten from a given number using their knowledge of place value
- Use number facts to 20 to solve related facts up to 100
- Add and subtract any 2 two digit numbers and explaining their method verbally, in pictures or using apparatus
- Recall multiplication facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables and use them to solve simple problems and related division facts
Maths Leaflet Three
These activities are suggested to support your child or young person if they are working towards developing the skills to:
- Read, write, order and compare numbers up to 10 000 000 including negative numbers
- Use estimation to check answers to calculations
- Perform mental calculations, including with mixed operations
- Use their knowledge of the order of operations to carry out calculations
- Solve multi-step problems, deciding which operations and methods to use and explain why
- Multiply and divide numbers up to 4 digits by a two-digit whole number
- Identify common factors, common multiples and prime numbers
Reading and Writing
There are 3 different leaflets to download below, depending on which skills your child is working on.
English Strategies Leaflet One
The activities outlined in the English strategies leaflet one are suggested to support your child or young person if they are working towards early reading skills such as:
- Beginning to match letters to sounds and blending sounds for reading
- Reading up to 30 key words
- Writing some letters and words with 3 sounds
English Strategies Leaflet Two
The activities in English strategies leaflet two are suggested to support your child or young person if they are working towards developing the skills to:
- Sound out most unfamiliar words accurately, without undue hesitation
- Read many words accurately allowing them to focus on understanding what they are reading
- Spell many common words
- Write simple stories about their experiences.
English Strategies Leaflet Three
The activities in English strategies leaflet three are suggested to support your child or young person if they are working towards developing the skills to:
- Read all of the Y5-6 common exception words fluently
- Read aloud with confidence, expression and fluency.
- Apply their phonic skills to read a range of unfamiliar words.
- Use strategies to spell most common words with accuracy.
- Use varied vocabulary, phrases and adverbs to add interest to writing.
- Complete writing which makes sense, where ideas are linked and organised in paragraphs.
Tips to support your child with their learning needs
- Make it fun!
- Little and often is best
- Be positive – give your child lots of praise
- If its not going well, stop and change the activity
- If your child has difficulties with writing, consider using other ways to record what they know such as comic strips, pictures, diagrams, audio recordings of a story or video of them acting
- In maths activities, getting your child to communicate what they are doing helps them learn, you don’t need to know all the answers!
- Make maths real – make models, cook, time activities in the garden. For example, how many jumps can you do in a minute?
- Keep activities short with a clear beginning, middle, and end
- Keep a routine – make a timetable. Be realistic
- Don’t expect them to work all day! Be guided by your child
- It’s ok to revisit things that you have done before, it helps children to remember what they have learnt
- Be guided by your child’s interests
- Remember, every day activities are opportunities for learning. For example, gardening and playing
Working with your Child in their School
Pupil and School Support teachers work with individual children and young people. Schools will ask their allocated Pupil and School Support teacher to become involved if they have concerns about your child’s learning and progress. This should be after they have already given some additional support and tried different things in the classroom.
The decision to involve Pupil and School Support should be discussed and agreed with you as parents/carers and your written consent will be gained first. All PSS involvement is personal to the child or young person and will take place after a discussion with the school about their concerns.
The Pupil and School Support teacher may:
- Work outside the classroom with your child to assess their skills
- See how your child works in the class
- Talk about your child’s learning needs with staff
- Talk to your child about how they feel about their learning
After seeing your child, the Pupil and School Support teacher will:
- Share ideas about what to try next
- Work with staff on how to help your child
They may also:
- Provide a written report for the school
- Meet you in school to discuss the work carried out
- Suggest other outside agencies who could also help your child
- Work with the school in monitoring you child’s progress and setting targets
- See your child more than once to assess the progress that has been made over 6 months or a year
Overlearning Games
Pupil and School Support have developed this teaching resource which supports the overlearning of single word reading and spelling, but adds a dimension of fun and engagement through a game based approach. Consideration has also been made when designing the games to allow them to involve up to four pupils with their own personalised words to participate together. A further advantage to this resource is the low cost and time effective aspect, which makes it a must have for busy classrooms.
The resource includes:
- Eight games
- A comprehensive guidance document explaining the teaching processes involved
- An assessment proforma
For more advice and support with this resource, contact your PSS teacher.