WELCOME TO HELPFUL HINTS FOR HOME LEARNING

a resource for quarantine and beyond

Guidance, suggestions and tricks of the trade from a teacher with over 20 years experience in UK and international schools. Covering everything from secondary maths to how to tie a shoelace, each blog entry deals with a single education issue and tries to make it as simple as possible to tackle at home.

Paul Wade

May 12
5 min

When Phonics Fails You

Well here we are once again – it’s been quite a while. Apologies for the break in posts - I've been a bit tied up with my own school. Hopefully the first set...

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Paul Wade

Apr 9
3 min

Questions Types and How They Work

Welcome back, Home Learners. Today, Helpful Hints is brought to you by yogurt-coated mandarin segments and sunshine. Today we are focusing on the sort of que...

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Paul Wade

Apr 8
6 min

(No) Hands Up! Remote Learning & Participation

Good day to you all, home learners. Hopefully, as the weeks go past, you are settling into a rhythm. Here at Helpful Hints for Home Learning towers we have r...

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Paul Wade

Apr 8
3 min

Modern Foreign Languages

Today, as a follow up to a previous post about what to do if you just don’t know the answer, it’s time to take a little look at modern foreign languages and ...

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Paul Wade

Apr 8
3 min

Phonics 2.0 - Long Vowel Sounds

We have already taken a brief look at phonics and short sounds. Just to recap, synthetic phonics is the preferred system in the UK (and many other English sp...

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Paul Wade

Apr 8
4 min

What to do...when you don't know the answer

So far I have concentrated quite heavily on younger children or given more general advice. in this post, I want to help out those with slightly older kids – ...

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Paul Wade

Apr 6
3 min

Real Life Skills

With everyone living such busy lives - most families have at least two working parents, work follows us home, social media follows us everywhere and, of cour...

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Paul Wade

Apr 6
3 min

Modelling, or Showing Kids How to Do Stuff

If you ever remember a teacher saying, “that’s not how I told you to do it” then you would be remembering a teacher who missed out a very important teaching ...

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Paul Wade

Apr 6
2 min

Why, Why Why - how to deal with endless questions.

This is our first 'by request' HHLH and we are doing.... So your little darlings are always full of questions. Often starting with WHY. "Why are we going to ...

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Paul Wade

Mar 31
3 min

What To Do If They Don't Want To Do Any Work?

Well, the short answer is, not an awful lot. If your kid has gone completely into NO mode, then they have shut down and you're not going to get anywhere we r...

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Paul Wade

Mar 31
4 min

Phonics

Today's topic is the thing that parents of Reception and Key Stage One children (4-7 year olds, roughly) find the most perplexing and hard to wrap their head...

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Paul Wade

Mar 31
3 min

Does it all have to be right? Why mistakes are good.

A lot of you will have been sent work for your children to do at home and will, understandably, want them to do as well as possible in all of that work. Here...

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Paul Wade

Mar 29
2 min

Movement & Play

I know that this might seem mind bogglingly obvious, but your child does not, in fact, spend all day in school, sitting at a desk or table, completing worksh...

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Paul Wade

Mar 29
1 min

Talk for Learning

A lot of us would have sat in classrooms and worked silently for long periods of time when we were at school. This is not what classrooms are mostly like the...

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