Keystone Tutors Blog
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Primary Enrichment Recommendations
Primary enrichment enhances learning by fostering curiosity, confidence and critical thinking beyond the curriculum by helping children explore subjects in greater depth. In this guide, our primary tutors explore the benefits of enrichment activities and recommend some of their favourite resources.
How to Support Your Child at Home with Early Reading
What is the best way to teach children to read? Teaching reading requires children to master two skills; phonics and language comprehension. They need to be able to decode by blending sounds in words to read them and they need to comprehend what the word means in the given context. In school, children will be taught these two skills at the same time. Phonics is used to teach word reading. Phonics connects letters (graphemes) with the sounds they make (phonemes).
A Guide to Starting Primary School
Starting primary school is a big step in your child’s life and marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter. This guide gives you a detailed overview on preparing your child for school, recommended reading lists plus some activities and ideas that may be helpful for supporting your child with the transition.
Webinar: How to choose a Nursery School - Q & A with a nursery specialist
In this webinar Harriet, Keystone's Director of Education, and Sabine Hook, a specialist nursery consultant, discussed the following key questions: How do you decide what the best option is for your child? When should parents start thinking about nursery schools and when do they need to register? How do you start the search and What do you recommend looking for in a nursery? What questions should parents ask when visiting a nursery? Is the Ofsted report a good place to find out.
What should we be able to do by the end of Reception?
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the first part of the National Curriculum for children aged 3-5, therefore covering both Nursery and Reception. During those years children will be assessed regularly in seven areas of learning: three ‘prime’ areas (Communication, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development) and a further four ‘specific’ areas (Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding of the World and Expressive Arts and Design).
What Can Parents Do to Help 3+ Assessments?
In some areas of London some children as young as 3 are already embarking into the mad and unsettling world of 3+ assessments. Assessing for nursery entry has long been a feature of prominent Pre-schools in New York but has thankfully been more of a rarity on this side of the pond. Some schools use this assessment to select children for nursery classes, usually linked to sought after independent schools.
What to Look for When Choosing a Nursery for Your Child
Choosing a nursery is often a daunting experience for new parents as their main frame of reference will be dim memories of their own nursery experience! The increasingly competitive London nursery scene now means that parents in the most sought after areas are forced to make selections on nurseries before their child has turned 1 or even, in some cases, before they have been born.
