The days when your child relied on you for everything are slowly fading – they’re entering the later years of primary school, growing up quickly, becoming more independent, and their world is shifting. Friendships are becoming an important focus and they’re taking on more responsibility for their learning as they prepare for the jump to secondary school. Discover how to support your child in year four, five or six to take more ownership of their learning, manage friendships and develop healthy study habits to help them thrive now and in the future.
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What Students Will Learn: The Fundamentals of Learning
The early years of primary school are all about “learning to do things” explains primary and special education teacher Dr Samantha Hornery, who is also the executive manager of learning and education at Learning Links – how to read, how to do maths, how to play a team sport. In the later years of primary school, there’s a shift as children start to apply these fundamentals to their learning. “Kids are asked to apply all the things that they’ve been learning in their early years,” she says. “It’s not about the reading anymore. They’re writing about the things they’ve read. They’re answering worded maths problems.”
How Families Can Support Them: Encourage Independent Learning
As your kids adapt to an expansion in their learning at school, mirror this change at home by encouraging children to take more responsibility for their learning, which helps to build good study habits for secondary school. “Ask questions that help them plan their time: what did you do today? What do you need for tomorrow? Do you have any homework? We have soccer this afternoon – when are you going to get it done? Start to let your child come up with the answers,” says Samantha.
You can also expect your child to come home with more complex projects as they approach the end of primary school. “The projects that might come home are a little bit bigger and may not be finished in a week,” says Samantha. “Teachers are trying to give them an opportunity to experience what it’s like when they go to secondary school.” At this stage, she says parents can start to “hand over responsibility for learning” and focus on providing organisational support.
How Students Might Feel: Complex Feelings About Friendships
As children grow, friendship becomes less about proximity – who’s in their class or lives next door – and more about things they have in common. “Children start to look for certain qualities in their friends, like feeling similar to somebody or having similar interests,” says Rachel Tomlinson, a registered psychologist specialising in child development from Toward Wellbeing. “Their sense of identity is cemented within the context of these friendships.” Friendships also become more complex as children navigate their place within the group and learn how to resolve conflict.
Rachel says having regular chats with your child about friendships can help them feel confident coming to you about any problems. “If you show you listen and you care about the little stuff, they'll feel comfortable when it comes to the big stuff,” she says. “As children become teens, we really do want to keep lines of communication open.”
Likewise, she says setting clear boundaries that are firm and consistent helps children develop self-confidence and age-appropriate independence. “It’s often a tricky time for parents and their children to navigate what that independence looks like when children want to walk to school by themselves or have more time with friends,” says Rachel. “Negotiating boundaries with your child can help to make them more effective.”
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What Students Will Need: A Dedicated Study Space
As your child slowly starts to have more homework, the later years of primary school are an ideal time to get them set up with a dedicated study space – a desk, a chair and perhaps a world map or times tables chart for the wall. “Study spaces are important,” says Samantha. “They demonstrate that homework is a separate activity to watching TV, playing and eating.”
What to Try
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How Families Can Support Them: Encourage Healthy Study Habits
You might set up a dedicated study space in your child’s room, in the study or in a shared area of your home. “What it looks like is very much dependent on how much space you have in your home and how much support your child needs to do their homework,” says Samantha. “Even in a small home that’s full of busyness and noise, being able to find a corner in a room where a small space can be set up for some homework is very helpful.”
Late primary school is also an ideal time to get to grips with tech. “From Year 3, there is usually some computer use happening,” says Samantha. Many schools incorporate tablets in classrooms throughout late primary school, so using a tablet or a 2-in-1 device that can be used as both a tablet and laptop at home are great options to start. Samantha recommends learning alongside your child so you’re able to troubleshoot programs used by the class and help them develop healthy screen habits. “If we wait for parents to be involved in the technology at home, at 13 there’s so much going on in the transition to high school that it can be really difficult.”
What to Try
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