Starting school is an exciting yet challenging time for young children and their parents. As a teacher and a parent, I fully understand the wide range of feelings you and your child may experience during their early weeks at school.

It is our aim, in the Reception class, to make the transition between playgroup and nursery, home and school as smooth as possible.

Lots of parents want to know how to get their child ‘School ready’. There are lots of things you can do to help your child. However, it is important to remember that every child is unique and all children learn at a different pace. 

All the fun activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development, and have a really long lasting effect on your child’s learning as they progress through school.

If you make the time every day to do some of the following things with your child it will make a real difference to your child’s confidence as a young learner.

• Talk about the numbers, colours, words and letters you see when you are out and about.
• Allow your child to cut out and stick pictures from magazines.
• On a trip to the supermarket, talk about all the different packaging shapes.
• Sing and tell nursery rhymes.
• Cook / bake together.
• Talk to your child at every opportunity – e.g. what you are doing that day.
• Share a book.
• Use the weather – shadows, rain puddles, snow, wind, mist and sun – to extend your child’s vocabulary.

Below you will find some exciting activities and a checklist sheet to help you to support your child.

Transition

We will be talking to pre-school and nursery settings, as we always do, to find out where your  child is in their learning. We will be inviting the children into our classroom in order for them to become familiar with the environment and adults. Dates for this will be released in due course.