Preventing Summer Slide

As a family, we have always believed in using the school holidays as a means to improve our daughter's academic skills and get ahead.

Summer Slide refers to how much academic ability a child loses over the 6-8 weeks summer holidays, equivalent to a full school term. Whilst some children may lose a couple of months academic ability, those who already find school difficult may lose up to a year. A summer of little and often learning can mean a child jumps an academic year.

The best time to work is straight after breakfast, before the fun activities of the day begin. We split up the 11+ prep work throughout the day, usually an hour of maths/non verbal or english/verbal first thing in the morning, or before dinner.

Introducing a daily 30-60min academic routine over the school holidays will help ensure a child continues to learn and will enable longer term retention of lessons learnt at school. Ideally create a plan together, discuss areas that your child may want to strengthen, or new areas/topics they are interested in researching. You can also create projects that a child and an adult, or more than one child can work on together.

Although we have 11+ preparation this summer, for summer 2019 we have already discussed and agreed to learn a language together (Japanese, Russian or French) as well as help our daughter to learn her periodic table. 

Additionally ensuring your child reads on a regular basis throughout the holiday will help with their vocabulary. We encourage our daughter to read before dinner or at bedtime. You can also aim to read as a family for 20-30 mins a day. 

Check out your local library's annual Summer Reading Challenge

What is the Summer Reading Challenge?

The Summer Reading Challenge takes place every year during the summer holidays. You can sign up at your local library, then read six library books of your choice to complete the Challenge. There are exclusive rewards to collect along the way, and it’s FREE to take part!