Amazon's Free Educational Resources Are Helping Parents, Carers Support Their Children’s Learning

Research released earlier this month reveals that while 45% of parents and carers enjoy being involved with their children’s learning, 29% find it stressful and 20% find it difficult.

Just over one in three parents (35%) who are involved in their child’s learning cite maths as the subject they struggle with most, and 42% say changing teaching methods have made it harder to get involved.

Working with leading education content providers, Amazon has launched one of the UK’s largest range of free student learning resources on its UK site, enabling parents, students, teachers and carers to access curriculum-linked maths + science content. 

Amazon Study provides free, curriculum-linked learning resources to support children’s learning. This is an extension of Maths4All which Amazon created during the pandemic to help parents with lockdown learning.

Bridging the Gap Between Home and School

Amazon Study aims to bridge the gap between home and school, giving parents and carers free and easy access to maths and science resources that will help them easily plug into their child’s learning.

John Boumphrey, UK Country Manager at Amazon said:

“There is no denying that parental involvement has a positive impact on children’s education, but our research shows that many parents and carers in the UK don’t know where to find the right resources to support their child’s learning. 

 

With Amazon Study, we’re providing easy access to free, curriculum-linked resources from some of the UK’s leading education content providers to help remove some of the barriers to STEM learning.

 

We are committed to supporting the education and skills development of learners of all backgrounds, and we hope to foster a long-term interest in maths and science, preparing children and young people for fulfilling future careers.” 

Reinforcing Amazon’s long-term commitment to help young people, regardless of background, develop the necessary skills and knowledge for exciting and fulfilling future careers, Amazon Study helps support learners from age five and onwards. 

Amazon study features free content from education providers, including White Rose Maths, The Open University, NRICH, Dr Frost Maths and Primary Leap, as well as exclusive content from Times Tables Rockstars.

Key Amazon Study features:

• The content is easy and available to download, and you can see all your downloads in one place.
• The content is categorized by age and subject to help parents easily access free resources straight away.
• Publishers include White Rose Maths, NRICH, Times Tables Rockstars, Dr Frost Maths and Primary Leap. 

The Research on Parental Involvement

Conducted on behalf of Amazon, the new research from YouGov surveyed 1000 UK parents and carers who are involved in their child’s learning and found that 45% enjoy being involved in their child’s learning, but 29% find it stressful, and 20% find it difficult.

Just over one in three (35%) parents and carers said they find maths the most difficult subject to help with at home, and one in 10, struggle to help with science. 

Among those questioned, 42% said that the change in teaching methods from when they were at school makes it more challenging to help their children with their schoolwork, and 29% worry they may confuse them if they try to help. 

Just over one in 10 (11%) respondents said that the cost of educational resources was a barrier to them getting involved.

Education Professor John Hattie’s 2008 seminal evidence-based study into the factors that improve pupil learning concluded that the effect of consistent parental involvement in a child’s learning is equivalent to adding two or three years to that child’s education. Parental involvement has a large and positive effect on children’s learning.

How it Works

Amazon Study utilizes Amazon’s existing search, recommendation and optimization engine to give people access to high quality learning resources in a single, trusted location. 

Parents and learners can easily browse learning resources based on age, subject and topic, read through customer reviews, then select and download them to work through at their own pace. Learning resources can be saved and easily accessed in a library on the Amazon Study homepage.

As a major employer and innovator with employees working in fields like robotics, machine-learning and AI, Amazon is uniquely positioned to use its scale and expertise to build programmes to help unlock the future workforce potential. 

Amazon has created STEM programmes like Amazon Future Engineer – a comprehensive childhood-to-career programme that inspires, educates and enables children and young adults to realize their potential in computer science through bursary schemes and online coding tutorials; AWS GetIT which encourages young girls aged 12-13 to consider a career in tech through an app building competition to solve real issues faced by their school or community; AWS Educate which offers free, self-paced online training resources for new cloud learners.

Dr Ems Lord FCCT, Director of NRICH (a brainy website for promoting math problem solving skills) from the University of Cambridge, said: 

“NRICH was delighted to share its expertise developing activities promoting mathematical thinking and problem-solving during the development of Amazon Study, and we look forward to future opportunities to collaborate to ensure all learners can freely access challenging, inspiring and engaging mathematical activities."