Combating summer learning loss
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By Cindy BlanesLower School Principal at ACS Egham International School in Surrey

Original article published 27 August 2010

The long summer holiday comes as a welcome break for children and teachers, but what’s the best way to overcome children’s loss of learning?

Child looking bored

Well-earned break

If you’re a small child, the holidays seem endless and returning to school in September an impossibly far horizon. The break comes as a blessed relief at the end of a long academic year and just like teachers, children need to recharge their batteries and have family time.

As teachers, we all recognise that by the end of the school year, many children are simply exhausted and at best treading water in terms of their learning as they juggle the competing demands of sports days, SATs, end-of-term productions and school trips. By July, most children are simply not in the best shape to learn more, nor teachers to teach!

For teachers too, the summer is a welcome break, but as the new term beckons concern grows that the classroom will be filled with children who have lost the habit and discipline of learning during the long break. Research had shown that it can take between four and six weeks to re-teach material that children have forgotten over the summer break.

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  1. MrsH
    on 1 September 2010

    L2L

    Great ideas, wish I'd read this before the holidays, so I could pass it on to parents and the kids themselves

  2. Rhizroberts
    on 30 August 2010

    What great ideas!

    I will be starting at a new school with a new class of years 3 and 4, and I will definitely be using these activities! Many thanks!

    5 out of 5