Seven ways to help your kids do better at school.

Essential advice for ALL parents.

As parents, we want to do everything we can to help make sure our children are not only learning to the best of their ability, but also enjoying it.

But our biggest fear is that we’re often not quite sure how we can help make that happen.

Well, it turns out there are some easy things we can do to help them on their way.

Here are seven simple ways to start helping your kids do better at school.

1. Make sure you have a positive attitude about education.

If you’re enthusiastic about your child’s education, then they will be too. If they understand the importance of why they’re at school and enjoy learning at school and at home, then they’re well on their way to experiencing a great education.

Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by The Department of Education and Training (School Mate app, download now via App Store / GooglePlay). But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

2. Discover technology together.

Talk to your child about the way we use different, everyday technologies like apps, mobile phones and the internet. Teach them about their digital footprint and how data is stored online, and have discussions about how to keep personal information secure.

If you have a tech-savvy child you could teach them about coding and video game design – you could even tell your child about the technologies that existed when you were a child (yeah, back in the Dark Ages) compared to today.

3. Make maths fun (yes, it’s possible).

Depending on the age of your child, there are lots of fun maths activities out there. You could look at recipes together and analyse the different systems of measurements (litres, grams, etc) and try doing simple conversions.

Try letting your child pay for the weekly groceries with real money, help them make a saving plan for something they want to buy or find numbers in the newspaper, in digits and in words, and cut them out and place them in order of smallest to largest number. Make it a game, and they’ll actually WANT to learn.

4. Talk to your kids about the world around them.

Everyone belongs to different social, economic, interest and cultural groups. Ask your child which groups they think they belong to. Are they in different groups to their friends?

Have a chat about what they have in common with their classmates, and focus on the similarities, not the differences. Kids also love learning how to identify state symbols like national flags – for them, it’s a fun challenge.

5. Encourage your child to read.

If your child doesn’t see you reading or isn’t encouraged to read at home, they may not find it as easy to progress with their reading in class. The best way I’ve found is for the parent to figure out what their child is interested in and guide them in that direction.

It might be cars or planes or transformers, whatever it is, incorporate it into their reading and they’ll be enjoying the process without even realising.

6. Meet your child’s teacher.

This probably sounds like an obvious thing, but as our children get older it sometimes becomes harder to meet with your child’s teacher and form a connection. Make a point of introducing yourself at the start of the school year and meet with them regularly. This will give them the opportunity to bring up any small issues before they become larger ones.

7. Talk to your children – always.

Seems simple right? To just talk to your children. But life is busy and in between picking them up each day and receiving the standard answer of ‘nothing’ when you ask them what they did today, you rarely get a glimpse into their schooling lives. Pro tip: Talk to them right before they go to sleep each night. Maybe they spill more because they are trying to stay up past their bedtime or they just need to divulge everything before they sleep, who knows? But if you get into the habit of a chat before bed, you’ll discover more of their world and if there are any particular problems they have at school.

How do you support your child’s education?

Here are some good books for the younger kiddies to get them excited about reading…

Want more? How about:

The 10 crucial life skills they don’t teach you at school (and how to teach yourself).

When the first day at school is anything but normal.

Want to find out more about what your child is learning at school in each subject at each year level? Need practical tips about what you can do at home to help support your child’s education? SchoolMate is an essential App for parents of school-aged children in Victoria, Australia. Produced by Victoria’s Department of Education and Training, SchoolMate will provide parents with a roadmap to help aid their child’s learning at home and at school.
More information can be found at www.education.vic.gov.au/schoolmate

Available to download via the Apple Store or Google play – or to use online at education.vic.gov.au/schoolmate)