In this episode, Claire talks over the internet to four members of the Classroom Secrets team about the varied (and sometimes quite confusing) terminology that schools and teachers use or need to know.
As a result of the coronavirus ‘lockdown’, many parents are trying to provide some form of education for their children at home. Many schools have provided wonderful ranges of resources to help with this, but, sometimes, these materials do contain words or phrases which class teachers would regularly use or would quickly explain in class.
In this week’s podcast, each of our guests is an experienced practitioner in a particular age-range of primary education, and, with Claire, they talk about the vocabulary and potentially confusing terms which appear most often in their phase of school.
First, Claire talks to Victoria Clay – the early years team manager – about the first phase of education that children experience. Victoria initially trained as teacher for the general primary age-range rather than specifically on the early years phase but, after covering a maternity leave in a reception class for several weeks, she knew that this particular area of school was where she wanted to work. In her teaching career, Victoria worked in three very different settings, including in a nursery, but made the difficult decision to leave teaching after having her own children.
Claire then talks with Katie Cockroft, a key stage one proofreader, about the terms children will hear and use in years 1 and 2 at primary school. Although her degree specialism was in the early years, Katie has worked mainly in key stage 1 and has been a leader of English in the school where she worked.
Lindsay Grix – our year 3 team manager – discusses some of the key learning children in lower key stage 2 will experience. Lindsay has 12 years’ experience of working across all primary ages from early years to year 6. Lindsay talks about the changes and challenges that children in years 3 and 4 experience as they quickly build on their learning in key stage 1.
Lastly, Claire talks with Betty Powdrill – the year 6 team manager – about upper key stage 2, where children, in normal circumstances, would be working towards the statutory assessments. Betty shares how, apart from a brief desire to become a dentist, she knew that she always wanted to be a teacher from a young age. After volunteering in schools and completing the Graduate Teacher Programme, she realised that she felt most comfortable teaching in year 6 and spent the majority of her career teaching in this year-group. Betty has also moderated writing for the local authority and co-ordinated maths across the school where she worked.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Learning can happen anywhereIt can be easy to feel ‘lost’ sometimes with how much children are expected to cover, but don’t overthink it. A lot of learning that children do – especially at the younger ages – can be unplanned and happen anywhere at any time. There is a lot that children can learn through doing things that don’t need to be organised or planned out ahead of time.
For early-years children, play is vitalPlay is incredibly important for nursery and reception aged children and developments at this stage are crucial to achievements later in their academic journey. Within this, it is also important to remember that children will learn at their own pace and developments will happen slightly differently between different children. Don’t worry too much if something other children can do isn’t yet evident for your child as they will, undoubtedly, catch up.
The importance of routines that work for youWhatever your routine looks like, it will almost certainly be fine. While we are still unsure about when schools will be reopening, having some form of routine in place is important. However, it is also useful to have flexibility in the routine and, as long as it works for you, it will help children to thrive and will allow some form of transition back to the school day when