Back-to-school month is almost over and no doubt there will be thousands of parents across the UK breathing a sigh of relief now that their little ones are starting to settle in to their daily routines of school life.
But when your child starts school for the first time, it's not only them who has a whole new world to get to grips with but you as a parent too.
Suddenly you're thrown head first in to a world full of PTA committees, Phonics homework and the dreaded SATs...and it can all seem a little overwhelming!
Well fear not because I have just the thing to help you out - and it's completely free!
As a homeschooling parent myself, I know all too well how tricky it can be to get to grips with teaching phonics to children and with homework becoming more and more prevalent for school children, the pressure for us to keep up with the curriculum and best practices for teaching it are higher than ever before.
I honestly can't recall my parents ever having to sit with me after school to go over homework or reading practice, certainly not in primary school but now children tend to bring something home every single day and if you have more than one child then it can feel quite overwhelming to keep up with it all and know how best to help your child maximise their learning time.
I was recently introduced to the Rising Stars Parents Hub - a fantastic educational resource for UK parents offering tons of invaluable advice, as well as the very latest in terms of educational news and learning resources.
The Parents Hub itself contains a wealth of information on all manner of primary school related subjects including a downloadable phonics guide to help you understand how to encourage your child's learning, alongside tips and advice on how to get the most out of the time you spend reading with your children, and some really useful articles on other topics like e-safety and the differences in the ways that boys and girls learn to name but a few.
There's also a whole section dedicated to supporting your child through the SATs - including videos offering revision tips, posts offering tips on how to best prepare your child for SATs and even a guide to the 2018 national results to help you understand it all.
I find the site invaluable even as a home schooling parent, so I can only imagine how much more useful it will be to parents of primary school children and to have this as a completely free resource is fantastic.
You can take a look at the Parent Hub by visiting https://www.risingstars-uk.com/parents-hub or you can go one better and sign up for the free Newsletter to ensure that you're kept up to date with the latest educational news and tips in order to help you to assist your child in reaching their full educational potential - you can sign up to the newsletter by clicking HERE
To celebrate the launch of the Parent Hub and its associated newsletter, Rising Stars are giving one lucky Sparkles & Stretchmarks reader the chance to win a bundle of 10 of their fantastic Reading Planet books.
Reading Planet is the only reading scheme that is written to meet the demands of the new UK curriculum, is rooted in the latest research from Coventry University to ensure children are adequately progressing with their reading journey, and also to promote gender equality and diversity through characters and themes within the stories too.
To be in with a chance of winning this book bundle, all you need to do is sign up to the Parent Hub Newsletter here and then enter via the Rafflecopter form below.
The competition will close on 12th October at midnight, and is open to UK entrants only.
Good Luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
*With thanks to Rising Stars for partnering with us on this post
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