Six ways to use ActiveLearn Primary over the school holidays

We all know learning doesn’t have to start and end in the classroom – that’s true now even more than ever – but it certainly doesn’t have to stop in the school holidays either. With ActiveLearn you can allocate plenty of eBooks, games, activities, online resources to your students so they can continue their learning during the school holidays (without even thinking they are doing any learning!). And because you can easily see what your students have done thanks to ActiveLearn’s in-built reporting, it can help make your planning for the new school year a little bit easier too.

Here are six top tips for keeping your students’ learning going over the summer break this year. If you’re teaching secondary students, check out these tips.

1. Get children excited about holiday reading with a Bug Club Reading Challenge

We know it’s difficult to ensure learners continue reading during the holidays and this can often result in a dip in their reading progress. Bug Club is great for tackling this with its online reading world and the ability to allocate eBooks to your learners to read at home.

How to do it:

• log in to your Bug Club or Phonics Bug subscription to your Bug Club or Phonics Bug subscription on ActiveLearn and allocate eBooks to your students to read over the holidays in the resources area.
• watch how to allocate eBooks in this video.

You could also:

• download the Bug Club Bookmarks and give all your learners their own passwords to the Bug Club online world to access their eBooks.
• ask your learners to choose their favourite Bug Club character and write a story featuring this character. You can send them to us at internationalschools@pearson.com – we’d love to read them!
• reward your learners with their very own reading certificates when they return to school after the holidays.

2. Inspire writing at home with Power English: Writing

We know it can be hard trying to encourage children to write, especially if they lack confidence or don’t know where to start. Power English: Writing is designed to get children writing for pleasure with personal projects and tips and tricks along the way.

How to do it:

• log in to your Power English: Writing subscription to your Power English: Writing subscription on ActiveLearn and allocate writing projects or individual genre booklets to your students. These contain examples and explanations of genre conventions as well as helpful prompt questions and hints and tips for generating ideas for writing.
• watch how to allocate writing tasks in this video.

You could also:

• share this pack of activities to get writing at home with your learners and parents. Developed with Ross and Phil, the series editors of Power English: Writing, it will help children generate ideas and alleviate some of the common anxieties around writing.
• Inspire your pupils by sending them a copy of last year’s winning stories in our writing competition – download the winners’ story book here.

3. Develop your mathematicians’ learning during the holidays so they’re all set for the new school year

We’ve partnered with White Rose Maths to produce Power Maths Summer Home Edition eBooks. Together, we’ve compiled a comprehensive learning package to help you make sure that every student has the essential maths skills and understanding they need to begin their new school year with confidence. The content fits alongside the White Rose summer term plans and are great for extra practice and content to use.

How to do it:

• log in to Power Maths Home Editions to Power Maths Home Editions on ActiveLearn (if you are already a Power Maths customer, we have sent this to you by email already).
• watch how to allocate activities to children in this video.

You could also:

• try School Jam, a brand-new parental engagement app for schools featuring fun, easy-to-use maths activities to support parents with their children’s learning. It’s perfect for home learning and is fully aligned to the Power Maths lessons and White Rose Maths so you can use it alongside your Power Maths trial resources. Contact your local Pearson consultant to add to your Power Maths subscription.
• check out White Rose Maths online training centre. It features a whole range of courses and webinars to choose from which are perfect to complete at home and at your own pace.

4. Turn your pupils into mini scientists at home with Science Bug International’s science quests

Science Bug International is topic based so you can use any of the topics you’ve been studying with your pupil’s this past term and continue their learning with videos, interactive activities and mini experiments they can try from home.

How to do it:

• log in to your Science Bug International subscription to your Science Bug International subscription on ActiveLearn to find resources based on your topic choice and allocate videos and games to your learners.
• watch how to allocate videos and games in this video.

You could also:

• use these sample pupil books and workbooks and encourage your learners to try a task on plants, animals, light and shadows or forces.

5. Play games all day? Yes, you really can do that and still learn with ActiveLearn

All parents know that any quest to encourage a six-year old to get involved in ‘learning’ or ‘schooling’ during the school holidays is likely to fail. But what if all they had to do over the holidays was play a few games in return for amazing rewards to spend in their very own virtual tree house or stickbook? It really can be that easy with ActiveLearn and what’s even better is that the games are all tablet friendly too so can be used by learners wherever they are!

How to do it:

• all Bug Club eBooks contain little Bug heads that flash up when a child is reading -when they see these, they get to play a game or solve a puzzle about what they’ve been reading.
• try the Abacus games. Log in to your Abacus subscription on ActiveLearn and filter the resources to interactive games and activities. There are hundreds of games to choose from that focus on core mathematical strands.
• allocate the games to your learners so they can access them from their own pupil world login on ActiveLearn. Completing them earns them pupil world coins to spend on stickers, items for their tree house or racing games. These will change depending on the pupil’s age.

You could also:

• watch this video on the ActiveLearn pupil world – remember to share it with parents too!
• watch this ALP rewards overview video.

6. All that great holiday learning is captured in ActiveLearn’s reporting dashboard

ActiveLearn’s powerful assessment tool helps you assess, track and report on your learners’ progress over the holidays, giving you valuable insights to help you plan for next term, such as:

• how many eBooks did they read?
• what did they think of each book?
• how many quizzes did they get right?
• how many maths activities did they complete?
• which bits did they find difficult?
• how many attempts did it take them?
• how does this compare with age-related expectations?

How to do it:

• you’ll find answers to all of these questions under the Assessment tab in ActiveLearn. See at-a-glance where each student is and then use this information to help you plan for next term’s teaching.
• watch how to monitor student progress in this video.

You could also:

• share resources to help parents too. 

We hope you have a restful summer break and that these ideas are useful and helpful. For more ideas on how to relax, check out this article on how to recharge your batteries over the summer.