Christmas Competition

Christmas Competition 2018

We are excited to announce our latest Christmas Competitions.

Maths

Santa’s Super Times Tables Challenge

This is a speed mental maths challenge using our computer programme.  Choose the Super Challenge and try to get a high score in one of the three levels (Some, More, All).  Make a record witnessed by a tutor and you can enter it for the competition.

English

Reindeer Writing

Either; write an information piece about reindeer or a poem about life as a reindeer.

Entries will be judged on an age appropriate level and can be handed in early.  Entries by Friday 14th December please.

Summer Writing Competition Prize Giving!

Fantastic Story Writing

Thank you to everyone for coming to our Summer Writing Competition Prize Giving event!

Well done to Alice and Shumaiya for winning our competition.  Local author Justin Strain handed out wonderful prizes to all the children who entered.

Alice also won £100 in book tokens for her school (St Jude’s Primary) and I was able to read out part of her story to the assembly at the school.  They loved it!!

Summer Writing Competition

Summer Writing Competition!

I Love to Learn tutors have teamed up with local children’s author Justin Strain, to encourage children to get writing this summer.  the competition is open to ‘I Love To Learn’ students as well as children in local schools.

The theme is ‘Mystery and Adventure’ and there will be three age categories;

• 7 to 8
• 9 to 11,
• 12 to 16

Portsmouth author, Justin Strain, has agreed to judge the stories and present a signed copy of his book to each winner On Saturday 29th September.

Summer writing competition will be a signed book, I Love to Learn goodies and £100 in book tokens for the overall winner’s school!

Click here for Justin’s ‘Profile’ page in The Times Chicken House Award

Click here for Justin’s ‘Good Reads’ page.

Justin writes books for young people (9-14) based in our home city of Portsmouth!  His first book is called ‘The Secret of the Scarlet Ribbon’ and has been short listed for The Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction Award.

The deadline for all entries is Sat 8th September, to be handed in or posted to I Love To Learn Education Centres. Alternatively, email tutors@ilovetolearn.co.uk

Competition Judging Criteria:

• Originality of idea
• Use of language
• Imagination
• Development of characters/plot

Justin’s Top Tips for Writing

• Try and imagine a scene as your character would experience it. Showing the reader what the character sees/hears/tastes/smells/feels can be really powerful.
• Think about how things would be different for your character in their situation/historical period. What would they wear or eat?  Would they go to school?  How would they get about?
• Describing an everyday event from a different perspective can be really effective. A walk across a darkened room after the lamp has gone out can be an adventure in itself!
• If you have a hero and a villain, make sure the villain comes alive – villains can often be the most deliciously interesting characters to the reader.

Christmas Competition

Can you guess the number of gold coins in the box?

We are always thinking of ways to have fun learning maths here at I Love to Learn! One important skill is estimating numbers of objects to help learn quantity.

Santa has helped us by providing golden coins for our children to count – but how many are there? Write down your guesses at our tutoring centre and we will announce the winner of an exciting age-appropriate prize very soon. Watch this space!

Tutor Profiles

Tutors at I Love to Learn

Howard Jones:

is the Centre Director. He is a secondary teacher with over 13 years experience and has now tutored 6 to 16 year olds for 12 years. Howard loves to teach all topics but especially senior Maths. He is passionate about education and seeing children reach their full potential. He enjoys politics, running and reading; but not at the same time! He is married to Linda and they have two fantastic children.

Linda Jones:

is the Co-Director with Howard. She has a huge amount of primary experience, having been a Literacy Coordinator in West Sussex, and Literacy Development teacher here in Portsmouth. Linda is now dedicated to perfecting students’ skills through tutoring. She finds working with children energising! She also enjoys cooking and playing Boggle.

Transition to a New School

Blasting Though to the Next Level!

Many of our little superheroes will soon be pushing through to the next level at school.  This may be a transition between Infant to Junior or Junior to Senior.  Even changing year groups can be a lot for younger children.

Do you remember the feeling of excitement and fear of going up to a new class or school?

Now is a good time to talk to your kids about these changes.  Fear of the unknown is the worst thing

especially for imaginative young minds.

It is a good idea to ask your child to write a list of questions themselves.  You never know what their concerns might be.

Talk to the Teacher

Always talk to the new teacher or school about your child’s special needs, personality, strengths and weaknesses.  Understanding a child is usually a great way to help teach that child.

Practical preparations are important also to help the child get ready mentally.  A new uniform or bag might seem a small thing, but it might help your little superhero think themselves into a new role.

If you do have any concerns about your child’s progress in reading, writing, spelling and maths please do not hesitate to call Howard and Linda on 023 93 968 626 or click on the Assessment Request button!

Overcoming Challenges (like SATs)!

YOU CAN DO IT!

You may have noticed but SATs seem to have had a bad press recently.  As parents, tutors and teachers, how should we respond to this?  Are we setting kids up for failure and depression?

I spoke to someone who didn’t pass her 11+ exam many year ago. She said, “I failed when I was at that age, I was a failure because I didn’t pass the 11+.”

She still felt the pain of this many years later.  Should we blame a system for damaging and hurtfully labelling children?

Prof M Seligman in ‘Learned Optimism’ says that we can teach our children to deal with challenges if we help them fight the worst bully of all, themselves.  It’s that little voice that they hear when things go wrong.  “You’re not good enough, you can’t do it, you never will.”

SOME SUGGESTIONS

1. When things go wrong be a good model, don’t say ‘I’m such an idiot’ (which is permanent) but ‘I am having a bad day’(which is temporary).
2.  If, for example, your child gets shouted at by a teacher and feels down, explore with them what that experience makes them believe e.g. he hates me, the class thinks I am stupid.

   

   Help them dispute this by making it less personal e.g. He shouts at everyone, the class knows this.  You may want to go through some practice scenarios to help your child develop these skills.

3.  If they do something well, say something like, ‘because you practised hard you have become much better/faster/stronger.’(personal, they did it)  ‘How do you feel?  I would feel great if I could have done that at your age.’ (feeling good gives them energy)
4.  If they say ‘I hate maths’ (a permanent negative belief), say ‘You’re just finding it difficult right now but you can work at it.’ (temporary and they can change)

We can’t avoid difficult things in life, and the evidence is that responding with a positive optimistic style is the best way to overcome adversity.  So, ‘Onwards and upwards’ as my mother used to say!

Take a look at this great video. https://youtu.be/2hHNq45rEnU

Find out more about SATS and get SATS resources….

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