Getting ready for secondary school: a Year 6 summer typing plan
The summer between Year 6 and Year 7 is a good moment to build keyboard skills: 10 to 15 minutes a day, on four or five days a week for six weeks, is enough for most children to move from hunting for keys to typing short paragraphs with the right fingers. Start with finger placement on the home row, add a few keys each week, keep accuracy ahead of speed and finish with real writing. Keep it light, because it is the holidays. Before September, check that your child can log in to the device they will use, type most letters without looking and knows a handful of shortcuts.
Why do keyboard skills help in Year 7?
Secondary school changes how children work. There are more subjects, more teachers and, in many schools, more homework set and handed in online. Some secondaries ask pupils to use a laptop or Chromebook in lessons or at home; others rely on computer rooms. Practice varies a great deal, so ask your child's school what to expect, but almost every Year 7 pupil will be asked to type something, whether a research task, a presentation or a piece of extended writing.
A child who types with two fingers while looking at the keys can manage, but slowly, and the effort of finding letters takes attention away from what they are trying to say. A child who types with the right fingers, eyes on the screen, can concentrate on the content. The National Curriculum does not set a typing standard: the computing programmes of study expect pupils to create and revise digital work but say nothing about how they should type. As a result, some children arrive in Year 7 having been taught touch typing at primary school and others have not. Some secondaries check keyboard skills early in Year 7, and our guide to the Year 7 keyboard baseline explains what teachers tend to look for.
Typing matters further ahead too. At GCSE, coursework in many subjects is word processed, and JCQ's instructions for conducting non-examination assessment allow candidates to produce typed work. Habits formed at 11 are far easier to set than to change at 15. None of this makes handwriting less important, though: children still write by hand in most lessons and most exams. Typing is an extra skill, not a replacement.
Where is your child starting from?
Spend ten minutes in the first week finding out. Ask your child to put their fingers on ASDF and JKL; without looking, finding the small ridges on F and J. Then watch them type a sentence and notice whether they look at the keys for most letters, some, or almost none. Finally, a free typing test for kids with 1, 3 and 5-minute options gives you a starting figure for speed and accuracy, with no sign-up.
Write the result down. You will repeat the same test in week 6, and seeing the difference is a strong motivator. Compare your child with their own first result rather than with friends or siblings; there is no national typing standard for Year 6.
What does a 6-week summer typing plan look like?
Each session lasts 10 to 15 minutes, four or five days a week. Skip a day for a trip or a heatwave without guilt, because consistency over the six weeks matters more than any single session. If your child already touch types, start at week 3 or 4.
| Week | Focus | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Posture and home row | Sit comfortably with feet supported and the screen at eye level. Practise the home-row keys and returning to them after each word. |
| 2 | Top row | Add the top-row letters, a few at a time. Keep checking the fingers go back to the home row. |
| 3 | Bottom row and capitals | Add the bottom-row letters and capital letters using the shift key on the opposite hand. |
| 4 | Words and sentences | Common words, then short sentences. Mid-plan speed check with the same test as week 1. |
| 5 | Punctuation and numbers | Full stops, commas, apostrophes, question marks, then the number row. Accuracy first. |
| 6 | Real writing | Type something they care about: a holiday diary, a story, a review of a film. Final check with the same test as week 1. |
You do not need to plan each session from scratch. A free typing course gives a ready-made order of keys to follow, and a good 12-minute session inside it looks something like this:
- Two minutes of warm-up on keys they already know.
- Five minutes on the week's new keys, slowly and without looking down.
- Five minutes on a game or short challenge that mixes old and new keys.
Stop while it is still going well. Ending on a good run makes the next session easier to start.
How do you keep summer typing practice fun?
Summer is for rest, and a plan that feels like homework will not survive six weeks. The simplest help is routine: ten minutes after breakfast is much easier to keep than "sometime today". Visible progress helps too; a chart on the fridge with weekly speed and accuracy does more than any number of reminders. Family challenges work surprisingly well, because children enjoy beating an adult on the same test, and many adults look at the keys more than they realise.
Give the typing a purpose where you can. A holiday diary, a letter to a grandparent or the lyrics of a favourite song is more motivating than random words. Typing games are good practice in moderation, but check that your child is using the right fingers rather than the fastest two; if they already know the BBC game, our guide to what to do after Dance Mat Typing suggests next steps. And if they keep glancing down, a tea towel over the hands for a few minutes is an old trick that still works.
Be patient in weeks 2 and 3. A child who used to type with two fingers may feel slower with ten for a while. That dip is normal, and speed usually returns once the new habit settles.
What should you check before September?
If the secondary school has told you which device or platform pupils use, practise on something similar, because a small laptop or Chromebook keyboard feels different from a full-size one. Once the school sends login details, help your child sign in once before term starts and agree where passwords are kept safely. It is also worth learning a few shortcuts together, such as copy, paste, undo and saving work.
Check the homework set-up as well: a chair and table at a sensible height, with the screen not too low. As for the typing itself, it does not need to be perfect. If your child can keep their eyes mostly on the screen for most letters, they are in a good place for Year 7.
Finally, if your child has dyslexia, dyspraxia or another need that affects writing, mention it to the secondary school's SENCO early rather than waiting for problems to surface. Our guide to touch typing and dyslexia in the UK covers the basics.
Where Kluppy fits
Kluppy is one option for the summer plan. It runs in the browser, including on Chromebooks, with nothing to install and no adverts. A free account, with no card needed, covers the finger-placement level and levels 1 to 7 of the course, which takes in most of the six weeks above. Paid plans start at level 8 and add AI-generated exercises built from your child's own mistakes. Paid family plans in pounds are coming soon in the UK; the UK pricing page shows what is available today. The typing test and typing exercises are free with no sign-up.
Frequently asked questions
Is Year 6 too late to learn touch typing?
No. Children of 10 and 11 usually learn touch typing quickly because they read fluently and have good hand control. The summer before Year 7 is a good time, because there is no homework competing for attention.
How fast should my child type before Year 7?
There is no national typing speed standard for Year 6 or Year 7, and we do not suggest one. What helps most in Year 7 is good technique: the right fingers, the home row and eyes mostly on the screen. Speed follows with practice.
Is 10 minutes a day really enough to learn to type?
For most children, yes. Short, frequent sessions build habits better than one long session a week. If your child wants to do more, let them, but keep the daily minimum small so it never feels like a chore.
Should my child stop practising handwriting?
No. Children still write by hand in most lessons and exams at secondary school. Typing adds a second way to get ideas down; it does not replace handwriting.