If you’re looking to improve your child’s future; set them off on the right track; feel like you’ve done the right thing by them and want to do what every great parent would do, to avoid all the time-wasting mistakes, that many others blindly make.

Afterall, time is precious. Your child is growing up fast and you don’t want to be wasting time fixing mistakes you could have avoided. Do you?

Screaming fits; frayed tempers; psychologist appointments and expensive tuition fees to help your child catch up because they’ve fallen behind in school, is not the vision of parenthood you’ve signed up for. Is it?

How do I know? Because I’m like you. You’re my type of parent.

You want to know you’ve done the very best for your child.

You want to enjoy your free time together and create memories to look back on, when your child has grown and left to enter their new successful life.

You want to enjoy parenthood and you want your child to enjoy their childhood.

You are smart, and you want it all.

But you know success doesn’t come easy, it takes effort, dedication and a little time, but you are prepared to work for it. You’re prepared to encourage your child to work for it too. You are prepared to work with your child to become a formidable team.

You know you HAVE to work with your child and be their cheerleader; their biggest fan and their coach.

To be successful, you need to be behind them 100%.
You’re prepared to absorb all the information on offer, to add value to their life.
You’re prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure you and your child succeeds.

Because that’s what great parents do, and you’re a great parent and you know your child is worth it.

You will not shirk from this responsibility and you will rise to the challenge, encouraging and infusing your child with your enthusiasm, until they are as excited about the future as you are.

Giving in or giving up is not an option. Your child’s life and future is far too important to you. I know it is, because you’re still here reading this.

You WILL make this work, because you want the magic inside your child to be released, so that he or she can become the best version of themselves.

Then one day when they go on to make a difference in the world, you’ll know you were part of that change too.

A couple of decades ago, we didn’t have the internet, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter even Amazon didn’t exist. Apple and Facebook were the brain children of students, so who knows what your child will create as  students in the next 20 years. Who knows how they’ll change the world?

The world is their oyster. Anything is possible, but it starts with you!

“But what can I do,” I hear you ask

Well that is what the Parent Teacher is all about and I’m here to help YOU!

So, who am I?

And how can I help you?

Well, the first question I can answer very quickly or slowly.

But because I know you’re really busy, as all parents are, I’m going to give you the quick answer for now, which is, I’m a teacher with 20 years of teaching experience in both Early Years, primary and secondary school and a mum of 3. However, for those of you who would like to get to know me better, then you can find out more about me by clicking here to read my bio.

The second question, ‘How can I help you?’ I feel is something you’d be more interested in right now. So, there is no short version to this answer.

So, let’s dive in and see what I can do for you.

The first thing I need you to do before I tell you, is to understand that there are three uncontrollable forces at play in your child’s life right now. These are dramatically going to affect their future, unless you actively decide to take control right now.

Gone are the days, when you could let your child play freely without any worries. There are real dangers to contend with. New dangers many are still not unaware of.

1. The population is increasing rapidly – this means there is naturally more competition, more competition and more competition. More competition means more people fighting for the same things, wanting to do the same things. This will create more bullying, stress, anxiety and disappointment when things don’t happen the way we plan. The world our children are growing up in, is already leading to despair. We need to help them carve a suitable path to success, to help them become more resilient and gain greater self-esteem in order to help them succeed. We need to be their foundation to grow from.

2. Technology can be dangerous – although technology brings many advantages, it also brings many dangers for our children, such as cyberbullying and social bullying on a scale never seen before – thanks to social media. Bullycide – suicide by bullying is on the increase, the youngest victim was only 8 years old. We have to protect our children from this scourge. We need to pay closer attention to our children’s emotional wellbeing and wake up to the new dangers our children are now facing. Then prepare them psychologically for the rough terrain ahead. As a teacher, I’ve seen first hand the emotional landscape of schools change and the number of referrals to psychologists and external bodies increase.
3. Technology is advancing rapidly – it is soon to swallow up more jobs in the future. It is predicted, when electric cars become the norm in the next couple of decades, most taxis will become driverless! Likewise, other jobs that can be performed by robots will also replace human skills, meaning the employment market as we know it will also change, and we will all have to adapt to fit in.

Throughout history, people who did badly in school and left unable to read and write, often went on to do the menial jobs that paid very little. But what happens if those jobs go to robots too? Even supermarket checkouts are being replaced by door scanners. So, all you need to do is walk in, scan your credit card and walk out with your shopping. The door scanners deduct your credit card automatically, in the same way self-serve petrol pumps scan your credit card and deduct after you have filled up with petrol.

No more till operators required in supermarkets anymore. That is, if everything hasn’t gone online already by then.

Today, it’s more essential than ever that our children do well in school, as poverty looks more like the only alternative, if they don’t as we move into a robot nation.

While many people resist the pressure on children to do well in school, insisting they have a childhood, what they fail to understand is that the pressure is now on parents to preserve their childhoods, not the schools.

With more children staying on to go into further education, competition for university places is fierce; but with the need to get into the best universities comes the need to get into the best schools. This in turn is putting more and more pressure on children at a much younger age.

If you think this is all sensational scaremongering – it really isn’t.

Education, which has long been seen as a luxury is now a basic necessity like food for survival.

How are children going to use the internet or use phones if they cannot read, for instance?

Now, I know you are going to say, ‘That’s why I send my child to school, it’s the teacher’s job to make sure my child does well in school.’

Unfortunately, I have some bad news to break to you. I’ve been a teacher for 20 years and I really need you to come on board and listen carefully.

By the time a child is 6 years old in Year 2, they take their first official National tests, Exams! The Year 2 SATs. (Gasp of horror!)

Barely, 3 years beforehand, parents were getting them dressed, cutting up their food and teaching them how to talk. Now suddenly, they’re being fast tracked into taking their GCSEs, or so it feels. Because let’s face it, these are not cutesy little tests their class teacher has produced for them, oh no, we’re talking National Tests, and dare I say it – hard tests. All the 6-7 year olds across the country take them at the same time and they are graded too. This is a big event in a child’s short life.

The results of these tests serve 2 important purposes you may not be aware of:

Firstly, they give the school and government, an idea of how well the school and children in an area are performing. This is to help improve teaching standards. Secondly, and more importantly for you, it indicates if your child is on track for greater things.

How I hear you ask?

Well, let me explain.

These first set of tests are no ordinary tests, they are in many respects a milestone.

If children do well in them, then it means they have developed a good foundation in their education so far, and can build on and grow academically from here.

If they do not meet the national target grades, then this will cause 2 issues.

1. They will need to do more work in the following years to catch up before the Year 6 SATs, resulting in stress.
2. They will be placed with lower ability children who are not academically able, resulting in children developing low self-esteem issues, because they don’t feel as clever as the other children who may be deemed brighter; causing social issues.

This last point is so important, I need to elaborate.

Children in schools develop at different rates and when you consider there will be children in the same class who are a whole year younger than others, then naturally there will be different ability levels.

Now children naturally gravitate to other children who are mentally on the same wavelength. In other words, clever kids will usually gravitate towards other clever kids, less-able children will gravitate towards other similarly abled children, because they feel more comfortable.

However, if you have a mentally, bright child, who performs academically badly, they will be grouped with the less-abled children. This is because they will not be able to do the work of the higher ability children. This invariably leads to unhappiness, lack of confidence and in many cases bullying.

The point I am trying to make is, mentally bright children can fall behind in school, not because they are not bright enough to learn the work, but because they just didn’t learn the work well enough for some reason. Maybe they had an extended holiday; they missed time in school or had a prolonged illness. There are many reasons. But it’s the teacher’s job to fix this problem, right?

Well, let’s look at this a second in a little more detail.

If there is 1 teacher and 30 children, in a 5 hour school day (excluding lunch), 5hr x 60minutes = 300 minutes/30 children = 10 minutes. So each child can only have a maximum of 10 minutes 1-2-1 contact time with their teacher a day. 10 minutes a day!

Is it really possible for one teacher to prepare nearly 30 children for such important tests in only 10 minutes a day?

That’s assuming there are no behavioural issues in the class or a child taking up more than their 10 minute quota.

It is for this reason, schools rely heavily on parental support, homework and other external resources to raise learning in schools.

The truth is, 9 out of 10 times, the children who do well in school are not always the ones who have had the most attention from their teacher in school, on the contrary they are the ones who have had the most attention from their parents at home.

Let me show you how this works.

Most of us know, selective grammar schools require children to take an entrance exam, before they can attend the school. These tests are considerably harder than the National SATs.

So, if this is the case, how are these children passing the tests? Who is teaching them? Or are they just naturally born bright?

Well of course not.

Most of the time, it is the parents of these children who have prepared them for the tests themselves, or they’ve hired a private tutor.

Either way, the work has been done at home. And when these children take the tests, they do well and continue to do well in the following years to come.

Why? because they have supportive parents. So naturally they are destined to do well academically.

So, what I am saying is:

It is necessary for all parents to play an active role in their children’s education right from the start, to ensure their children do well in school.

There is no denying the SATs are hard, and as a parent you feel like you do not have the skills or the knowledge to support your child. But I must disagree.

Any help you can give your child at any age will help them immensely in the long run.

The more effort you make with your children right at the beginning, the more they can enjoy their childhoods and learn in school at a more leisurely pace. It is the additional parental support and assistance that children receive that produces the highest academic grades, and ensures they are able to enjoy the childhood parents feel they should have.

But how do you do this?

Unfortunately, kids aren’t computers.

You can’t stick a memory card into their brains and load it up with data.

Kids also aren’t adults, so you can’t make them sit there for hours on end reciting spellings and times tables or constantly make them read books. Which regrettably some misguided parents do.

Kids are kids, they are a species of their own. They want to play and have fun, imagine, grow, waste time, blow bubbles, fly kites and other fruitless pastimes.

And they do it at their own frustratingly SLOOOW pace!

So here in lies your problem.

What on earth do you do with these stubborn, wilful, demanding, non-compliant little aliens who won’t let you make their life better and easier?!

No matter how important you think your child’s future is, they will think their future is EONS away. It’s not important now.

So, there is no point trying to sell them the benefits of their future. Because if you try to make them appreciate something they don’t understand, they will give you the run around, they will whine and complain and downright refuse to do any work. They will drive you mad and waste all your time in the process.

I know, because I have three children of my own, not to mention the thousands I’ve taught over two decades.

So, I sympathise, and my heartfelt sympathy goes out to you unreservedly – genuinely!

So, what do you do?

Well, you do what any smart, intelligent, respectable parent would do,

Change your strategy!

Find the winning formula.

But what is this?

Help your children to teach themselves!

Yep, you read right, teach them to do it all themselves.

Help them to set targets, build in a reward system for meeting those targets.

Learning shouldn’t be a chore, it should be an achievement! It should be FUN! Something they want to do themselves.

It’s we boring adults who normally strangle all the fun out of learning.

On this website, through my courses and videos, I will show you what children learn in school and how you can teach it at home.

I will help you to make the learning fun, so that your child will actually want to work with you. And more importantly, I’ll make it quick, so you don’t need to spend hours trying to teach them simple things.

The thing with primary kids is, they want to do things THEMSELVES! They don’t want help. They think they can do it better, well more fun anyway. So, let them.

DON’T give them work to do! Give them a challenge! Let them work things out, guide them, don’t do it for them!

Make it practical!

If you want them to learn how to make lists… ask them to write a shopping list for you, then take it with you when you go shopping next time.

If you want to teach them the time, buy them a watch and ask them the time throughout the day. Or ask them what time it is on your kitchen clock, and so on. After a few lessons in learning the time they’ll have learnt a valuable life skill and maths skill in one go.

In this site, I teach you, how to teach your child at home.

In this way, you can give your child the edge. They don’t have to wait for their 10 minute 1-2-1 with their teacher, because they have a guaranteed 10 minutes with a parent-teacher at home, with tailor-made interactions just for them.

In case, you are in any doubt that you can help your child and are wrongly underestimating your abilities, let me show you what is possible when a parent instils real self-belief and courage into their child.

Richard Branson founder of Virgin (trains and planes), left school at sixteen, with few qualifications and suffered from dyslexia, however this didn’t stop him becoming one of the twenty richest men in Britain. How?

Because his mother and grandmother were extremely supportive.

Steve Jobs CEO of Apple, Pixxar and other companies, had humble beginnings, but because of the support from his adoptive parents, was able to change the world and history with his unswerving self-belief.

Mark Zuckerberg, student founder of Facebook. From his dorm room at university became a millionaire at 23, after being supported by his parents. Tiger Woods, whose father introduced him to golf at the age of 2, became a household name after winning his championships. Not forgetting the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus who were Wimbledon champions.

The glittering list of celebrities who became famous for a variety of skills were people who’d had self-belief and support instilled in them from childhood.

While I accept, you may feel a little anxious about supporting your child academically as schooling has changed since you were last at school. I can help you with that, but you need to provide the unswerving support and instil in your child the self- belief that they can do it.

And I don’t mean pump them up to become disillusioned over inflated egos but have a basic understanding of their real latent talents that they are going to cultivate and share with the rest of the world, which I can help with too.

The world is changing – so let’s get your child ready together!