Parent Tips

As you know at Kip McGrath we specialise in Maths and English so the majority of our students fit into two broad categories:
1. Those wanting to learn to read and spell at a functional level and
2. Those wanting to achieve grade level in maths.

The Kip McGrath Reading Program consists of 80 sessions to move a child from a non-reader (having a reading age of less than 5 years) to a functional reader (having a reading age of 9 years).
The Kip McGrath Spelling Program consists of 7 levels with each level typically taking 20 sessions plus homework (approx 6 months) to complete.
The Kip McGrath Maths Program consists of 12 levels with each level typically taking 20 sessions plus homework to complete. Maths tends to take longer to achieve grade level than English. The reason is that while we are filling the gaps in previous knowledge, students are constantly learning new maths concepts at school.

So in answer to the question: “How long will my child need tutoring?” some students come 6 to 12 months, achieve their goal then feel confident to move on by themselves, while others need the support of coming every week. Some come for an extended period, take a short break then resume when school becomes too difficult again. I know this is not an ‘exact’ answer, but the reality is that all children are different. However the guidelines above should give you a good ‘feel’ for how long it will take your child to catch up on average.

In the next few issues of our newsletter, I am going to give you some practical suggestions on how you can help your child become a more independent learner. I am going to focus on the 7C’s: curiosity, confidence, collaboration, communication, creativity, commitment, and craftsmanship.
These are the qualities suggested in ‘Educating Ruby: What Our Children Really Need to Learn’. The first quality is curiosity. Curiosity is at the heart of all learning. Being curious involves noticing things and asking questions.
Young children have curiosity in great abundance, constantly pestering those around them with questions. Here are some things you and your child might like to try if your curiosity needs a boost.
1. Stop answering your children’s questions. Apart from things which might pose risk (‘Is it safe to cross the road now, mum?’) try not to provide answers but instead respond to your child’s questions with phrases like: ‘What do you think?’ or ‘That’s a great question; how could we find out more?’
2. Try new things together. Simple things like going to the library to get new books/DVDs or cooking a new recipe together will create natural situations in which questions can bubble up. You can be more adventurous: visiting new places – or safer: learning a new game at home, for example.
3. Replace ‘Not now’ with ‘Why don’t we’. It’s so easy for us as adults to squash our children’s enthusiasm. We have things to do and it can conflict with our family’s expressions of curiosity. Give yourself permission to take some time to be curious. Follow your child’s lead and explore something that interests them. You might find you enjoy it more than you expect.
I would love to hear your stories. Share them with me on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/KipMcGrathHunter/

Australian Schools: A Brief HistoryFlag-map_of_Australia.svg
In the early 1800s churches set up schools to teach children how to read so they could read the bible and learn religion.
By the 1830s, government set up schools. They saw them as a way to reduce crime and help create an organised and orderly society from the Penal Colony. Children were taught the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic (known as the 3 r’s) as well as how to be ‘good moral, law-abiding citizens.’
In the 1870s education became compulsory. The church-run schools were outside the Government system and remained so until well into the 1900s.
The depression of the 1890s and the need for skilled workers, caused merchants to demand that the technical education in schools should be improved.
Apart from increasing the time spent in primary schools to seven years, and decreasing the total amount of the time spent in high school to four years, this system remained basically the same until the 1950s. Since then, changes to the curriculum and examination methods seem to have occurred every few years, depending on the amount of pressure that is placed on politicians.

Welcome back to the start of another school year. Over the holidays I came across a very interesting book called ‘Educating Ruby: What Our Children Really Need to Learn’. It is written by Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas and was published in April 2015.
It made me wonder ‘Are our schools teaching our children what they need to learn?’, ‘How can I influence what is taught?’, ‘Why were schools invented?’ ‘How Can I Help Parents Teach These Character Traits to Their Children’ and the list goes on. I will write more about these topics in future newsletters.
‘Educating Ruby’ is a good read for everyone who worries our school system is not preparing children for the uncertainties and challenges of the real world. It shows how we can cultivate confidence, curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, commitment and craftsmanship in children at the same time as helping them to achieve success in public examinations. These qualities of an education system are important to me.
You may or may not know that I chose to send my own two children to non-mainstream education. My son was the reason I chose the Steiner school in East Maitland. After only a few weeks of starting Kindy in a mainstream school, he was coming home very angry and started to hate going. The move to the new school worked wonderfully for him. He was able to learn what he needed to learn in a supportive environment and not made to feel like a failure. He was able to move seamlessly into mainstream education by going to St Mary’s for Year 11 and 12 and achieved the ATAR he needed to get into Newcastle Uni. He now runs his own business called Deano’s Nemos, enjoying teaching children to swim.
The reason for this article, and I also believe it is the purpose of ‘Educating Ruby’, is to spark conversation. It gets us talking to each other, teachers, principals, members of parliament, etc.. Don’t think: ‘I am just one person. I can never make a difference’. Change happens when enough people put in enough time and energy to make things happen.

We all want the best for our children and would do anything to ease their pain. As a parent you sense there is a problem with your child’s schoolwork, but is it significant?
“Is my child really having a problem?”
“Is it just a development phase?”
“What do those school reports actually mean?”
“Will tuition really help?”

The notion of tutoring, whether it’s to catch up, keep up or get ahead, has been around for a very long time – Socrates, for instance, tutored Plato and Plato tutored Aristotle. These were all bright philosophers and scholars who learned from someone who knew more.
However a tutor is not necessarily the answer to all problems your child is experiencing at School. Some problems may simply be the understanding of a single piece of knowledge – something that can be resolved by simply asking your child’s school teacher.
On the other hand, some problems at school are much deeper for your child. A tutor may be appropriate when the problems are longer term and require consistent effort to overcome.
So, how can parents know when a tutor is right for their child?
Here are 7 scenarios where a tutor may be appropriate for your child:
Your child demonstrates a pattern of slowly worsening grades in school
They have low self esteem and thinks negatively of themselves in relation to their school performance
Doesn’t want to go to school
Misbehaves in school due to a lack of interest in learning
Is preparing for key exams
Has test scores that do not reflect her daily performance
Struggles to focus on a task (e.g. – spending more time daydreaming than on homework)
Now, if you decide tutoring is the answer for your child, it’s important to make sure the person you choose is the best qualified to meet your child’s needs.

Here are 9 tips for you to use when choosing a tutor:

Make sure the tutor is licensed or certified. Tutors will need the proper qualifications to assess, diagnose and tutor to a child’s weakness.
Look for a tutor with experience teaching children the same age as your child.
Request an assessment. An individualized analysis of a student’s strengths and weaknesses can determine a child’s needs and help set goals. Also, insist on progress updates as a child passes through each step of the tutoring program.
Define your goals. Are you trying to keep your child from failing? Are you looking to challenge a child who is already doing well in school? Be sure your tutor understands your objective and is skilled enough to meet it.
Find a tutor with specific expertise in the subject of your choosing. Just because someone is a maths genius, it doesn’t mean he is qualified to teach other subjects.
Make a personality match. Determine what kind of teacher the student has excelled with previously.
Ask tutors how they will help your child master a specific skill. A good tutor will require that a child learns a specific skill before advancing to the next academic level. Find a tutor who will work with parents and teachers to create an individual program.
Ask prospective tutors for references from previous employers and students, or hire a respected tutoring company.
Ask family and friends to recommend a tutor.
This is quite a long list, but it is really important that you consider the majority of these points. After all, it’s your child we are dealing with here, and we want to make sure they get the absolute best help possible.
See how our tutors tick all these boxes. Sign up now for a FREE Assessment – no strings attached.
Learn more here

Happy New Year everyone!
Now is a time to reflect on what worked and didn’t work in our lives during this past year and to put plans in place for the year ahead. What are you most looking to improve in 2017? Is it related to health, relationships, career, finances or happiness? Mine is to create greater happiness in my life.
Did you know happiness has a lot to do with the way you think? I’ve heard it said; ” You are the only as happy as you decide to be”. A lot of our stress and worry comes from thinking about past events or worrying about future ones. But what can we do about it?
Practicing mindfulness has been proven to work. Mindfulness has been practiced for thousands of years through meditation, yoga. Tai Chi and martial arts. Now if you are like me. I keep telling myself: ” I don’t have time to sit cross legged for 20 mins and think about nothing.” However, mindfulness can be done anytime, anywhere and costs nothing. It is simply a change to the way we think. It’s being aware of what is happening physically, emotionally and mentally to us right now.
mind-full-or-mindful Here is a breathing technique I use.
Give it a try…
Take some deep breaths and some shallow breaths. Feel your lungs fill with air as you inhale and then feel how they contract when you exhale. Take a minute to now take 5 deep slow breaths. Don’t read anymore until you give it a good go.
Welcome back. Experiment with different kinds of breathing: through your mouth, your nose, deep and shallow, fast and slow and feel the effect in your body. Notice the effect it has on your thinking and how it makes you feel. Next time you are in a stressful situation, bring your attention to your breath and breathe slowly and deeply. It will help restore your sense of calm and focus quite quickly. If you want a good example of mindfulness, watch children as they play. They are experts at living in the moment.
Whatever New Year’s resolution you make, share it with others so they can help keep you on track and make it a great year!

Well actually, these days, I believe it is all three…

Forty years ago, when I was at school, we started each day chanting our times tables and then did exercises that challenged us to answer correctly as many questions as possible in a set time. It was how it was done. We had no choice. The consequences for not learning them were quite severe in some cases.
But, things have changed…

Today these methods are frowned upon and called ‘old fashioned’. And what is accepted now will be different tomorrow. Teaching strategies will always change with the times as we search for better ways to create real learning.

However, I am seeing more and more children each day unable to automatically recall their tables. Sadly, all too often I hear “My child doesn’t know their times tables and they’re off to high school next year.”

The only way I can see it working in today’s environment is to have teachers responsible for teaching children how multiplication tables work and why they are REEEALLY important. With this understanding, the Children can then be responsible for learning them with the help of their parents. Together with this teaching and learning your child will truly know their Times Tables.

I can hear you groaning now, “I just don’t have the time or patience to do that!”

Well, from seeing over 1000 children come through our Centres over the years, I have found the best way to learn the Times Tables is constant repetition until it embeds into their long term memory. This means at school and at home until it sinks in.

Ideally two, five-minute sessions a day for 21 days will commit each of the times tables to memory. Once done your child’s life will be so much easier with other parts of Maths like division, fractions and decimals. If we could convince them to do this, the memory would be there FOREVER!

So, truly KNOWING times tables will come as a result of the effort put in by all involved, where teachers TEACH them and children LEARN them.

Put simply: TEACH + LEARN = KNOW

Below I have some suggestions for things you can do at home to speed up the process. With focused effort we can make this happen. The key is finding the method and motivation, which will work best, for your child.

The word “Christmas” comes from an old English phrase that means “Mass of Christ.”

December 26 was traditionally known as St. Stephen’s Day, but is more commonly known as Boxing Day. There are a number of different reasons why it is called this. The one I like best is that money was collected in alms boxes placed in churches during the festive season. This money was then distributed to the poor and needy after Christmas.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 by a 34-year-old copywriter named Robert L. May, who came up with a poem about a misfit reindeer at the request of his employer for a Christmas story they could use as a store promotional gimmick.

coolrudolfrgbThe Rudolph phenomenon really took off, when May’s brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody far a Rudolph song. Marks’ musical version of “Rudolph”, recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time, second only to “White Christmas.”

Dyslexia- Helpful Tips and Resources

In addition direct instruction, the following considerations may assist in school success so don’t be shy to ask your school for some or all of the following:

extended time and/or oral exams;
modification of assignments;
reduced course load;
major course of study in areas of individual strength;
small classes; and
technology aides such as text readers, smartpen, and spelling and grammar checks
For lots of practical hints and tips on things not to say or do, how to foster your child’s social-emotional health, how to help them with their homework and getting organised and many other useful topics, visit the website Tips for Parents and Families of Children with Dyslexia- IDA Hawaii which supplies a downloadable PDF file. The information is in point form so it is easy to read.

At home, you may also find to following websites useful: http://www.memory-improvement-tip.com/brain-game.html, http://www.spellingtraining.com/, http://www.freetypinggame.net/, and http://www.roktalk.co.uk/ ROKTalk is a web-based application that allows you to hear any web text read out loud. I haven’t looked into this one in a lot of detail, but it sounds good.

Programs and devices, such as talking word processors, word prediction programs, child-friendly voice recognition, and portable note-taking devices may assist with writing. The following website provides a great list of these devices: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/assistive-technology-tools-writing.

Whatever resources you are considering, it is important to give your child options and then decide which systems work best for them.