There are a number of things parents can do to support their children’s learning and personal development.
Experience shows that by monitoring learning through the student’s diary, ensuring full attendance and attending Information Evenings, parents can make a huge difference to a student’s achievement.
Parents can also support their children with homework and help them develop healthy habits that will support their learning, such as looking after their mental health, getting enough sleep, doing exercise, eating healthy food, engaging in hobbies or relaxation techniques. Please check out the links below for more information.
1. Create a productive learning environment
You can help your child maximise their productivity by providing a quiet space where they can work. Encourage this to be a media-free space and with as few distractions as possible to aid concentration. A healthy diet is also important to sustain brain activity - please check out the leaflet below for more information.
2. Developing healthy sleep habits
Quality sleep plays an essential role in the development of memory and cognition and research shows that the brain’s ability to process information declines with lack of sleep. You can support your child by helping developing a healthy sleep routine and ensure their learning is not affected by lack of quality sleep. Please check out the leaflet below for more information.
3. Looking after their Mental Health
The wellbeing of your child can impact on their learning abilities, influencing their motivation and goal attainment. Take time to do some research about mental health issues and symptoms with young people to help you better understand any issues your child might be struggling with. Below you can find some guides with more information surrounding mental health and wellbeing.
To help your child with their home learning you can:
- plan a homework timetable for your child and agree the time they will complete it;
- discuss any homework tasks with your child and how this relates to what they have learned at school;
- do not help your child by giving them the answer; instead, explain or show them how to look up information in order to reach their own conclusions;
- try to make their homework as engaging as possible, as a fun activity that they would look forward to;
- turn off the TV and put aside any potential distracting devices to increase their concentration;
- provide a quiet place at home to be used as a homework area and ensure it has a good light source;
- provide all the required equipment to complete the homework, such as pens, pencils, notebooks, dictionary, ruler etc.;
- provide your child with something nutritious to eat before starting their homework to ensure they have enough energy to complete the task;
Why is literacy so important for your child's development?
- To be literate is to gain a voice and to participate meaningfully and assertively in decisions that affect one’s life
- To be literate is to gain self-confidence
- To be literate is to become self-assertive
- Literacy enables people to read their own world and to write their own history
- Literacy provides access to written knowledge - and knowledge is power. In a nutshell, literacy empowers.
Please check out the links below for information on how you can help your child with literacy
Below you can find further links to other online resources:
