✕

TheSchoolRun.com closure date

As we informed you a few months ago, TheSchoolRun has had to make the difficult decision to close due to financial pressures and the company has now ceased trading. We had hoped to keep our content available through a partnership with another educational provider, but this provider has since withdrawn from the agreement.

As a result, we now have to permanently close TheSchoolRun.com. However, to give subscribers time to download any content they’d like to keep, we will keep the website open until 31st July 2025. After this date, the site will be taken down and there will be no further access to any resources. We strongly encourage you to download and save any resources you think you may want to use in the future.

In particular, we suggest downloading:

You should already have received 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep. If you haven’t received these, please contact us at [email protected] before 31st July 2025, and we will send them to you.

We are very sorry that there is no way to continue offering access to resources and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

SATs preparation: how play can help

Girl with lego tower
Noses in books and pens to paper are all well and good for SATs revision, but did you know that encouraging your child to play could also help them achieve their best during SATs?
With Key Stage 1 SATs and KS2 SATs taking place in May, we all want to know what we can do to help our children achieve their very best. So read on to find out how playtime could help your child succeed. 

The power of play

Did you know that play can support almost all areas of school performance?

"Play has an integral role in child development," says developmental psychologist at the University of Nottingham, Dr Nicola Pitchford. "For example, pretend play helps children develop story-telling skills, supporting development of imagination and grammar, while constructive play requires children to focus their attention on the task at hand."

Why it works for SATs

When it comes to SATs, play is a great way to improve your child’s chances as it can hone skills that are essential for the subjects that are assessed. "Play facilitates the acquisition of basic cognitive skills that are used in English, maths, and science," says Dr Pitchford.
 
"Through play, children learn to represent things symbolically and start to understand the relations between objects and events. Symbolic representations form the basis of many skills learnt at school that are assessed through SATs, such as literacy, writing, spelling, numbers, shapes, space and measurement."

Let the games begin

"Parents can best support their child through the SATs experience by encouraging interactive play in a variety of contexts," suggests Dr Pitchford. "For example, parents can provide practical examples about numbers through asking their child to count out objects, or perform simple additions and subtractions with objects. Similarly, basic science concepts, such as volume, can be reinforced through playing with containers of different sizes and pouring water from one to another."
 
It’s easy to help with your child’s English learning through play, too. "Basic English skills can be supported through parents reading with their child, constructing stories together and rehearsing these stories with aids, such as puppets. In addition, parents can engage in socio-dramatic play with their children, in which they act out what it will be like to be assessed, thus preparing their child for the testing situation."

The toys and games your child already loves are also brilliant from an educational perspective, and they probably won't need too much encouragement if you suggest a Minecraft session, playing with Lego or other construction toys, a game of cards or a word game!

Remember, play shouldn’t take place at the expense of your child’s study, but it’s a useful development tool alongside it. And there’ll be no arguing with that!