Today’s blog is jammed full of how kids get to school, uniform ideas, drinks (woo!), digital devices, tutoring, nativity, and of course, Christmas! Here we go…
How did you get to school?
Brrr! Even though the weather is now much chillier than the start of term, most children still travelled to school or nursery in the same way as when we asked in September, with just a few more in the car and a few less on foot.
We also asked how you got to school when you were the same age as your kids are now. Overall, it seems there was more travel on foot ‘back in the day!’ For secondary-aged kids, there seems to have been a marked decline in the use of a specific school bus, but public transport use is surprisingly stable.
What uniform items have a logo?
What item of uniform has a school logo is an important question because they are available in fewer shops and therefore the price can be higher.
When your child is in primary school, most of you are buying jumpers and cardigans with the school logo on (83%). Book bags and sports t-shirts were also branded in just under half of cases and a third have a logo on a school t-shirt.
In secondary schools, sports t-shirts were most likely to have a logo (69%), closely followed by blazers (64%). Around half of secondaries require the logo on other items of sports kit and on jumpers / cardigans. 14% also require the logo to be on skirts or trousers!
Luckily just over half of you told us that your school or nursery has a second-hand uniform bank. This was more or less the same across primary and secondary – although awareness across secondary is much lower. Mum’s were more in the know on this one, with a third of dads saying they aren’t sure (compared to a fifth of mums).
Do children use a digital device for schoolwork at home?
Use of a device for schoolwork or education when kids are at home seems pretty essential by the time children are in secondary school. Interestingly, dads and mums have different opinions on whether their kids are using devices, so we’re going to ask a question about who supervises homework next week!
What drinks are allowed?
For most kids, even older ones, fizzy drinks are often reserved for special occasions or weekends. Around a fifth of primary kids and two-thirds of pre-schoolers simply aren’t allowed them at all. And plenty of primary kids (28%) don’t like them anyway!
And around the 14 to 16 age range is when it’s most common age to allow your children to have an alcoholic drink at a family occasion (e.g. Christmas dinner). There is a strange dip at 15, which could be due to a phenomenon known as ‘even number bias’ which is a proven phenomenon where when offered the choice, people prefer even numbers!
What’s the National Tutoring Programme?
It’s probably fairest to look at the results to Tuesday’s questions about the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) without the responses of parents who are teachers who may well know more about it. So, just looking at the non-teachers, 61% of parents have heard of the scheme.
In terms of where the tutoring will take place, around half think it will happen while the kids are at school, but over a third said that they don’t know. Perhaps the more important question is where parents would like the tutoring to take place (we’ll find out next week!)
Only 5% of parents think that their child will participate in the scheme, and when we look at families with a child in receipt of free school meals (who the scheme may be targeted at) this is still only 10%. So who, we wonder, is going to take part in activities from this £1 billion fund?
Will school nativity plays move outside?
A third of primary kids will be missing the annual nativity play this year. The show will go on for a third who will have their Oscar-worthy moments streamed or filmed. A hardy 1% will be upping the reality by performing outside, brrrrrr!
And the other third? Well they don’t know yet, but judging by a similar question asked on Teacher Tapp, they shouldn’t hold their breaths.
And finally…
Christmas shopping update: 9% have now brought all your Christmas presents (up from 4% 2 weeks ago) and 72% have bought some items. There’s still a stubborn 18% who haven’t bought anything (and yes, there are slightly more dads in this group than mums!)
Coming up next week
50% of you are are planning to put your Christmas decorations up next week, so we’ll keep our festive questions coming 🎄 We’ll also follow up on the questions about the NTP and about homework.
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