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There are several reasons a child might miss out on a significant chunk of school. A lot of students have missed out in the last year, and have fallen behind. They can miss work due to being ill or being absent from school due to a family emergency or situation. Whatever their reason for falling behind, helping them to catch up again is likely to be one of your top concerns as their parent. This will mostly be their school’s responsibility, but you can also do some things to support your child at home.
It’s tough to try and catch up with missed material when there’s also current work that needs to be completed. Your child might feel like they’re always a little behind. If you want to help, take a look at these tips to support your child as they catch up.
Get Some Extra Support
Schools may only be able to do so much to help individual children catch up, especially when there are multiple children who need to get caught up. If your child needs some extra support but the school is unable to provide it for them, you should look into how you can provide academic support outside of school. This could include going to extra lessons after school or on the weekend or perhaps having some extra tutoring. You can hire GCSE tutors or tutors to help your child with their SATs. However, your child doesn’t have to be preparing for a test or exam. A tutor can simply help them to catch up and support their learning.
Don’t Try to Do It All
One thing to keep in mind is that it might not always be possible for your child to completely catch up with what they have missed. When they have to get weeks or even months of material into their lessons, it’s likely they won’t have time to explore some topics in-depth or might need to skip some things altogether. It can be important to remember that what matters most is that they learn the key skills that they need, not necessarily that they cover everything on the curriculum. If they learn how to analyse a piece of text for English class, it won’t matter too much if they don’t study four different texts.
Help with Homework
If your child is bringing home extra homework to help them catch up with what they’ve missed, you can provide support by helping them to get it done. This could involve many things, from sitting with your child to help them go through their homework or hiring a tutor to making sure your child has a quiet space to do their work. Having homework to do can be frustrating after having spent all day at school, so it’s also important to be understanding when your child is reluctant to sit down and do their homework. Providing assistance can help to get it done faster.
Incorporate Important Skills at Home
Catching up on missed schoolwork at home doesn’t have to mean tutoring or doing homework. It could also include various activities that just happen to teach your child the skills that they need to learn. You can spend time reading together, do some writing, bake together to learn maths and science skills, and even go on outings to find new ways to learn things. You can make learning fun and teach your child without them even realising.
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Provide Emotional Support
Falling behind at school and having to catch up can also have an emotional impact on your child. If you want to ensure they get the support that they need, you should also consider how to offer emotional support. Your child might want to talk about how trying to catch up is making them feel. It could be a good idea to ensure your child also gets time to unwind, deal with stress and have fun. Not everything can be about catching up with schoolwork.
Support Their Social Life
Missing out on school can affect your child’s social life too. If this is something that you’re concerned about, you can also help to support the development of their social skills and help them to build and maintain friendships. This might include encouraging them to connect with their peers or allowing the time and space to spend time with friends, rather than only focusing on academics.
When your children have missed out on school, they need your support to help them catch up. Try to support them in different ways so they can get the best results.
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