“A little progress each day adds up to big results” - Satya Nani

Summer learning loss is reported a lot around this time of year – the period of time where students don’t continue their learning for 6 weeks and then start their new academic year having to re-learn what they’ve forgotten (or pushed to a compartment deep in the back of their memory!).

As I said last week, academic years can absolutely fly by, and if it’s a particularly important year for your son or daughter (e.g. Year 11 with GCSEs or Year 13 with A-Levels), then they can quickly fall behind and be pushed for time to fit everything in.

September is usually a settling in month, getting back into it after the summer break.  October includes a week off for half term. November, in reality, is a long month (and usually involves mock exams). And December is mainly full of festivities and a 2-week school holiday.  And before you know it, it’s January and only 5 months until exams…

See how it can disappear… and fast!

What you don’t want to add to this is 6 weeks of learning loss from the summer holidays. 

So how can students maintain what they have done this year during the summer and start September raring to go?

Well, for younger children there are so many activities to involve them in whilst on holiday – counting pebbles on the beach, measuring the height of sunflowers in the garden, giving them coins to use when buying an ice-cream… really simple everyday life tasks that adults would usually do themselves as it’s quicker! But with the gift of time, why not leave it to them? 

And then there’s times tables – knowing their times tables off by heart and back to front is a skill for life and one that I thoroughly believe gives students confidence in their mathematical ability the older they get.  There’s a great app for download (and it’s also available in a web browser) called Hit The Button and it makes learning times tables fun, using 1 minute games to get as many questions right as you can.  A few minutes each day can really add up 😊 and I have been known to play this with secondary students who need a quick refresh or who haven’t thought about their times tables in a while – you’re never too old to practise!

For older students, the thought of daily maths during the holidays probably isn’t great! The easier we can make it feel, the more likely they are to do it.  Counting pebbles and measuring flowers isn’t going to cut it – their work really needs to be related to what they’ve learned at secondary school so far – to consolidate the basics and prepare them for what’s to come.

For those that are self-motivated and want to do extra work, there are plenty of free resources online with tonnes of maths questions to use (e.g. Corbettmaths or Mathsgenie).  School may even have provided a login to the likes of Mathswatch or Dr Frost Maths where mini tests help keep things ticking over.  But for a lot of students, it can be difficult to find the motivation to actually log on and do it.

(It’s a bit like my online yoga membership… I have access to hours of yoga sessions to do in my own time, when I want, where I want.  Have I done any yet? Nope…!)

So that’s why we are running our online Summer Sessions – short (40 minutes max) and to the point (one topic per session), with me at one end going through worked examples, and students at the other end having a go there and then.  They are webinar style and cameras are off – no-one likes to be put on the spot!! And once the session is over, recordings are sent out for future reference and extra questions with worked answers are also provided.

Why not persuade your teenager to join me for just 40 minutes (less than an episode on Netflix!) and brush up on topics that they might prefer to sweep under the rug until exam time, and start September raring to go into their next academic year?

I have picked a range of standalone (ish) maths GCSE topics that are all in the Foundation syllabus and go up to a Level 5.  This doesn’t mean they aren’t appropriate for students taking Higher level maths – as anything and everything could come up in that! – however they would probably suit Higher students who are aiming for a level 4-6.

And I’m always looking for ways to make things even better – so if there are topics missing that your son or daughter really needs to work on, then please let me know by emailing hannah@m2t.co.uk.  I plan to run similar style sessions throughout next year so can easily factor other topics in 😊

That’s it from me today – even if our sessions over the summer aren’t for you or your child, hopefully something in this email will give you an idea for your to get your child doing maths during the holidays… without realising that they are doing maths during the holidays!!

Speak to you soon,

Hannah