With all of the technology in the world, AI to control everything in my house from my heating to what I watch on TV, more laptops than Encyclopedia books there really does have to be a better way right?
Now I was up on my technology at school, I knew the difference between Windows 3,0 and Windows 95. I used to hook up the printer for everyone in the IT department when it’s big serial cable would fall out and ruin everything. However there was a very clear divide between those that knew (me) and those that didn’t (everyone else!).
My Daughter is in Year 9 now and there doesn’t appear to be that level of competence anymore, everything is online and I can imagine not knowing how to use a computer/phone/tablet etc. would be the social equivalent of your trousers falling down and wearing Thomas the Tank Engine Pants. For the record, this wasn’t me 🙂
So I was really happy when I was given the opportunity to try out the online platform Educational Quizzes . I was even more surprised that there’s a parental quiz section but we’ll come back to that later.
Educational Quizzes appears to be the Holy Grail for parents like me, that wish to monitor their children’s development and support where possible in a non-formal way. Tests at school appear to be getting harder and harder whether they are in KS1 (Key Stage 1) or GCSE level and looking through a few of the pages, the questions are ridiculously hard. They also aren’t the tricky worded ones like
“Timmy has 25 apples and drops 3, what is the value of PI to 95 decimal places”Weren’t examining bodies were tough on us! There also appeared to be a big divide between age groups too for examples. Do you remember turning up on day one of a new year, taking Maths and thinking “have I missed out on 6 months of lessons?” This felt like every year with me and I was one of the high achievers. Imagine what it’s like if you need support. Looking through the Curricular on Educational Quizzes, there’s KS1, KS2, 11-Plus, KS3, GCSE, ESL, Specialist and Parents. Each age groups is split up into subjects like KS1 where they have Art and Design, Computing, D and T, English, Geography, History, Maths, PSHE, RE, Science, Spelling and Times Tables. [gallery link="file" size="medium" layout="slider" ids="11495,11494,11493"] I’m really happy that this is available not only for my 14 year old but my 10 month old. Thinking that Bethany can get the support that she needs in a low pressure setting wherever she is whenever she wants. It also means that at each stage we’ve got Parenting pointers for how we can give them support and what we should be doing. I also think that we can up skill too! Maybe not physics again. The biggest love is for Dorothy. At 10 months old she’ll be going into formal education in a few years that’s tracked and made available at all years and something like Educational Quizzes where the quizzes are written by Teachers can be made into a routine from a very early age. I’ve had a trial for free but talking to them on how it’s priced they have a £9.95 monthly subscription. They also work with schools to ensure that pupils have the opportunities to use them and have created subscriptions where a school can pay on behalf of the students and benefit from greatly reduced costs. Depending on the number of students at a school, it is possible for them to sign-up students for as little as £2.00 per year. This is something great using new technology to educate rather than distract and I for one wish I had this when I was a kid. But then again I wanted to achieve things in my life and hope that my daughters will follow in my footsteps.]]>
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