There are plenty of things to teach your children over the long summer break, but it takes a lot of motivation, says Toby Young
One of the shortcomings of being an “education guru”, as I like to style myself, is that it can leave you feeling rather anxious about your own children’s progress. As a father of four I have lost count of the times that I have stumbled across some research paper only to think: “Blimey! I’m a really rubbish parent.”
Take “summer learning loss”, one of the most robust findings in the literature. Numerous research studies have shown that children lose, in aggregate, one month of schooling over the course of the summer holidays. In maths the average loss is 2.6 months. That is to say, when children return to school at the end of the holidays they are 2.6 months behind the point that they were…