Policy wonks have found that summer learning loss, an established side-effect of long school holidays, is particularly pronounced in some groups:

…children from the poorest backgrounds suffered most with ’summer learning loss’ because they were the least likely to practise reading and writing during the six-week break.

The Education Guardian has reported on plans from think-tank The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) to shorten the long summer holidays. This should interest parents from any wealth bracket – without the right attention even the most expensively educated can suffer.

Further to this, long term times might be causing ‘burn out’ in some students.

A co-author of the IPPR study, Sonia Sodha, calls for a five-term system, with two-week breaks between eight-week terms, and a month for summer hols.

Many parents remember their long summer holidays with fondness, even though the original purpose of the long break – to allow children to return to farms for the picking season – has almost entirely been forgotten, certainly in practice.

Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations argues that children may also need “…a chance to recharge their batteries”; but one could well argue that if the terms weren’t so long, children’s batteries wouldn’t need recharging in the first place.

(As of 2010) Former Children’s Minister Kevin Brennan said the IPPR report (which also includes recommendations on increasing the role of play in classes for 5 and 6 year-olds and suggestions that secondary and primary schools employ in-house counsellors or use counselling networks) matches commitments made in the coming ‘Children’s Plan’.

Keeping children constructively entertained over summer is an issue, whether or not the Children’s Plan includes shortening the summer holidays. The finding that unstructured holidays can lead to ‘learning loss’ is still relevant, and is something we recognise. In 2007, Whizz Education launched our Summer Adventure – featuring the Professor lost in the jungle. Students were charged with helping him escape, by solving maths puzzles and playing jungle-themed games.

(a maths puzzle from the 2007 Summer Adventure)

The Summer Adventure was a huge success – Maths-Whizz students at Mead School, Kent, had a great day helping the Professor escape from the jungle when Toni Burkett and Monique Kleinschmidt from Whizz visited with prizes for their top-performing students.

(Our 2007 Summer Adventure in use at the Mead School, Tunbrdge Wells)

Our Summer (and Christmas) adventures encourage students to continue learning with Maths-Whizz; students must finish lessons before they can try the themed games, and they get to learn about jungle creatures with our colourful worksheets.

We’ll be bringing back the Prof and his rainforest antics each Summer, with brand new features. If you’re wondering how to keep your child occupied this summer, make sure he or she logs onto Maths-Whizz, because the Professor isn’t going to escape from the Mayan jungle all by himself…

[UPDATE: Read a study of 39 investigations into Summer Learning Loss]

[Read more about summer learning loss - Wikipedia]
 

The flight ban is being lifted after the Iceland Volcano

This is good news for everyone, except possibly wealthy holidaymakers unconcerned about returning to work. The volcano’s timing could not have been worse for families keen to get back in time for the summer term, let alone for teachers kept from their classes.

There are many lessons to be learned from this sometimes surreal interruption to modern jet-age lifestyles, and we wouldn’t presume to know them all.

But we do know that thousands of parents may have been spared concern over the brief gap in their children’s education with a dose of Maths-Whizz maths tutoring.

Maths-Whizz can be used in airport lounges, in overspill hotel rooms, on internet-connected channel ferries and – who knows – even on navy mercy ships, come to pluck travellers from foreign shores.

Maths-Whizz – perfect for volcanic disruptions.

BBC Question Time to host Carol Vorderman, creator of new online maths school The Maths Factor

She is joined by Lord Adonis, Boris Johnson, Shirley Williams, Carol Vorderman and the eternally miserable Will Self.

Vorderman’s presence on the programme has nothing at all to do with the World Maths Day launch of her new online maths school The Maths Factor, absolutely not.

Instead, our Carol has probably been brought on to discuss the odds of a Tory win in the coming elections (given her association with the Conservative Party) and the state of British maths education.

[POST UPDATED 07/04/2010]

From Countdown to The Maths Factor - Carol Vorderman launches an online maths school

We can’t say exactly how The Maths Factor is going to work, but first impressions indicate that Vorderman, lately darling of the Conservative party’s education task force, will be presenting maths concepts to children by video, and then testing them with simple quizzes.

This is potentially a different approach to the online maths tutor behind Maths-Whizz, but when we know more about the service we’ll be sure to keep you posted!

The Maths Factor launches on World Maths Day, tomorrow, when children of all shapes and sizes spend a day hammering maths questions in the name of international competition, and with the aid of unethically large doses of caffeine.

UPDATE, 4th March, 1740: Watch Carol discuss maths on BBC’s Question Time, tonight.

Since we launched Maths-Whizz Tutoring four years ago, we’ve been providing ‘live updates’ to parents and teachers on the progress of their students’ Maths-Ability.

It’s something of a no-brainer: when Parents and Teachers are able to access the same student progress information, it strengthens communication between the school and home. This produces purposeful and positive understanding of every child’s current ability – strengths and weaknesses.

This Friday, BECTA will recognise the benefits of live reporting in a conference for Primary School Head Teachers and Leaders: Engaging parents through online reporting – London 26 February 2010.

Educating schools on the importance of a transparent relationship between Students, teachers and the home environment is at the core of Maths-Whizz beliefs and is applied through our Best Practice Methods.

With Head teachers now taking the step towards embracing these methods across the country, we can expect only a positive step toward all students reaching there full potential through ICT and Maths-Whizz.

(Raising standards in maths - PIR Education)

Some great coverage of our efforts to boost maths standards in schools and home:

Maths-Whizz, which first appeared at BETT in 2006, returns this year with the latest generation of its animated maths teaching tools. The company’s method is to make services that work simply to raise standards in maths, regardless of the classroom environment, the student’s year group or the prevailing new vs. old maths agenda. For this, Maths-Whizz won a BETT award in 2006 and has since been adopted in domestic and schools markets as diverse as Mumbai, Seattle and Tunbridge Wells. The company has further boosted its credentials with two BETT award nominations this year.

Click through to PIR Education to get the full piece and share with all and sundry.

If you haven’t already, log into your Maths-Whizz student account and check it out. For the first time ever all Maths-Whizzers can try our Holiday Adventure. If you’re not a Maths-Whizz user there’s no reason not to give it a try.

Register for a free maths tutoring account and get access to five free lessons and a taste of the seasonal fun we have in store.

This is something we’ve probably always known, but never really made a fuss about, until Donna Cowan (one of our newest customers) pointed out yesterday:

“…If [Maths-Whizz] is a full curriculum I suggest you push this to home schoolers – in UK especially we are desperately short of a good thorough home school curriculum. Home education is ALL about individual learning, tailoring everything to the child’s abilities and learning style, and totally going at the child’s pace, so I really am hoping Math Whizz could be the solution for us and we can leave the Workbook Tantrums behind!”

So, we’ve taken Donna’s advice and created a brand new Maths-Whizz page for home educators: http://www.whizz.com/parents/home-education.html.

The page features a link to our sample exercises, plus links to some useful sites for home educators – whether you are one already or are considering it for your child.

You can also read my blog post from this time last year, where I provided some tips for home educators using Maths-Whizz Tutoring Plus. Read the full post for Whizzer mum Wendy’s own suggestions about how to use Maths-Whizz.

If you’re not already using our online maths tutor – and you’re a parent of a home-educated 5-13 year-old – then subscribe!

Get your hoots on with the Whizz Owl.

Login to our maths tutor at www.whizz.com/login.

If you don’t have an account, create an account there and start earning the credits to buy yourself this handsome winged beast!

This is great news for Xavier, and testament presumably to his early devotion to maths, and ability to study and revise to pass the exams with flying colours.

His achievement is a case in point in that maths ability is individual, personal, and that students can excel if those personal requirements are recognised and met.

Our maths tutoring services do exactly this. Whilst we can’t take the credit for Xavier’s success (not least because we teach up to Year eight) we might echo some of the sentiments expressed by Xavier’s tutor Mike Ryde.

We genuinely believe it is better to offer children the opportunity to take these examinations across their academic career as opposed to cramming them all in at the end of the one year.

If a child wants to move forward and enjoys the subject then it is cruel to hold them back.

Dr Ryde told BBC News that a lot of damage can be done when schools will not let a child move forward at their own pace. This is an exaggeration, but it is nevertheless broadly true.

A school that tries to fit a class full of square pegs into the round hole of a rigid curriculum will likely fail to recognise the range of strengths and weaknesses in a class and all will suffer.

Many parents have turned to Maths-Whizz for precisely this reason. You can give our free maths lessons a try.