Teacher shortages, budget cuts, bigger classes – every news bulletin has another piece of alarming education news.  Whether your children’s school is directly affected or not it’s got to be worrying. There were Academies, which were developed to improve things, but now there’s a move to make all schools into academies. There have been various drives to recruit people into the teaching profession, but the stats say that around a quarter of teachers leave for the commercial world within five years. Both central government and local councils are cutting budgets and there is talk of school hours being cut because of lack of funding.  For working parents that’s another challenge too – who will look after children if they let them out of school even earlier? Is it all doom and gloom?  It seems so, there’s very little positive news on the horizon, so what can you do as a parent? Most families can’t afford to send their children to private school, with fees running into many thousands of pounds a year. The fewer teachers mean bigger classes and, in turn, less effective teaching due to the teacher having less time to spend with individual pupils.  It’s long been reported that the basic literacy and numeracy gap is affecting the workplace.  Not only can children who leave school lacking in these areas fail to find work, but when they do, their poor skills can affect the business they’re working for in productivity and bottom line profits. Do you think your child is behind in these two essential skills?  Most parents don’t and are astounded when their child is assessed and they discover they’re at least a year or two behind. If you think one year behind isn’t a big deal, think again.  Being behind your age group means that everything gets harder and the gap widens.  Soon that one year becomes two and then three.  Passing exams with that big a gap is a hill too high for most kids.

Here are the tips you need to actively influence your child’s future

  • Stay in touch with what your child is learning and how they’re doing
  • Don’t wait until they’re really struggling before taking action
  • Keep an eye on class size and if it goes over 30 talk to the school about how they plan to deliver the teaching level needed to get the children through their exams successfully
  • Look for ways to help your child ‘top up’ their learning. This might depend on your own subject knowledge, but you can always share knowledge with other parents.  How can you help them learn?
Fortunately, you don’t need to send your children to private school or pay for a tutor to get them ready for exams.  That’s exactly what we do at Exemplar Education.  Talk to us about getting your child assessed and getting them up-to-speed without breaking the bank.