Darren Burton has been in touch with Brigg Blog, as manager of our local Kumon Centre. What follows will interest many parents who have children of school age...
Because most children haven't been able to go to school for quite a while, the Kumon Maths and English Study Centre in Brigg is offering a FREE Impact Assessment (via a one-to-one video call) to let parents know whether their child has fallen behind.
As the centre's manager, Darren said: "Most children in England, through no fault of their own, have not been to school since Friday 20th March. Despite the best efforts of teachers to supply work, as well as parents doing their best to provide home schooling, it seems lots of children may have fallen behind. And understandably, lots of parents are worried and unsure whether their child is one of them. All over the UK, the question on every parent’s lips is: "Is it safe to send your child to school?" Whether your child is returning to school this week or not going back for a while, would you like to know the impact their absence has had so far, and where they are in relation to their school year?
"For many years, the government has compiled data demonstrating a clear link between absence from school and a child’s educational performance. But without even needing to read those governmental reports, we all already know that if a child is absent from school for a while, it usually negatively impacts upon their progress. However, as a Kumon centre manager, I know exactly where each of my students is, in terms of their maths and English progress, compared to a child of the same age as them. (My students' parents know this too because I keep them updated on this on a regular basis.) At Kumon, we’ve taken our world-class personalised study programmes and continued to deliver them via a combination of online learning (small-group classes via Zoom where each child gets one-to-one interaction and personalised feedback each time they attend) and offline learning via our tried-and-tested paper worksheets that have already helped more than 20 million children unlock their potential to become confident independent learners."
As the end of the school year approaches, Darren will be working with each of his students – and their parents – to set each child a couple of personalised learning goals for the summer. This means they’ll have their smartest summer ever and will go back to school feeling confident, keen, sharp and ready to keep learning.
Darren has been running the Kumon study centre in Brigg since 2014 (the Brigg centre's been running since 1997, and Kumon's been around since 1958) and also took the centre in Scunthorpe over last summer. Although Kumon is the UK’s and the world’s largest supplementary education provider, Darren knows you might never have heard of it.
He told us: "This is because we increase our student numbers by word-of-mouth recommendations rather than extensive advertising. We use paper worksheets and pencils daily (there is no screen time) and under normal circumstances, children visit my centres up to twice a week after school or on Saturday mornings. They do about 20 minutes per subject per day and this is enough to help them build a solid foundation in numeracy and literacy before progressing beyond their school level and developing a wide range of independent learning skills that then help them across the whole of their school’s curriculum. (At Kumon, we focus on maths and English because increasing ability in these two subjects is the key to excelling in all other subjects.) This is why even though the world is very different for everyone at the moment, during this unusual time I’m continuing to provide our world-class learning programmes to all my students for home study - but I’m also running online group classes as well as having one-to-one video calls with the students to go through the most challenging worksheet questions and thereby help keep them on track."
Over 4 million children all over the world are currently studying with Kumon, and they’ve already helped more than 20 million children unlock their potential, develop a love of learning and instil a can-do attitude by achieving success from day one. Because of this, Kumon's personalised study programmes can help any child of any age and any ability level to excel beyond expectations.
To help local parents gain a clearer picture of whether their child has fallen behind academically during the recent school closures due to covid-19, Darren is currently offering a free impact assessment that uses two 15-to-20-minute tests to establish any child's current ability level in maths and English. These tests help identify any child’s main strengths and weaknesses in terms of maths, as well as how that child compares to other similarly-aged children with regard to their reading and comprehension. As a well-established and trusted local tutor, Darren is currently offering to do these impact assessment(s) - for one or more of your children - completely free of charge and with no obligation to enrol with Kumon. You can book your assessment(s) by emailing him at brigg@kumoncentre.co.uk or scunthorpe@kumoncentre.co.uk
If you’re not quite sure and you’d like to have a chat about it first, you can either email Darren for a call back or you can call him on 01652 802 123 (it’s the same phone number for both centres).
Darren said: "If you do decide to book an impact assessment, it'll enable us to establish exactly where your child is for maths and/or English compared to other children of the same age, so you’ll be able to see what impact the lockdown and school closures have had on your child’s progress in these two key areas. If your child has fallen behind a typical child in their year group, I’ll be able to tell you how far. Likewise, if you’ve managed to advance your child or keep them ahead of their peers with home schooling during lockdown, I’ll be able to tell you how your child compares academically with children of their age across the developed world. I’m offering these impact assessments because, right now, they’ll answer some of the big questions on lots of parents’ minds. I’m doing this for free. I’m doing this because in these circumstances it's the right thing to do. Kumon have been doing this for 62 years. It’s what we do every day."
Whether your child is behind or ahead of a typical child their age, Darren can also tell you how Kumon’s personalised study programmes could help them in lots of ways - but only if you’d like him to.
He's assured us there is no obligation whatsoever to have that conversation.
"So if you'd like to know what impact your child's absence from school has had, why not book a free impact assessment today?" he adds.