Top Tips to Prepare your Child for School

The Brook Early Education and Care shares some tips to parents on preparing their children for school readiness

Following our Kindy Info Night, which amongst other things included the presence of Principal of St Mary of the Cross Primary School talking about school readiness, we have put together a few tips to help parents whose children are moving from kindergarten to primary school, to help ease the little ones into this new stage of their learning journey.

What We Do

At The Brook, our kindy teachers make sure to include activities to assist with children’s school readiness every day. While early childhood education is a lot less structured than ‘big school’, and still revolves around play-based learning, it is incredible what children learn and absorb through it, according to Miss Anthea Driscoll, from the Blossom Room, who is completing her Bachelor of Education.

“Not only do children learn social skills, but also emotional resilience, as well as numeracy and literacy skills,” says Miss Anthea. Miss Dipti, from the Primavera Room, who has a Masters degree in Teaching, adds that listening to children’s opinions and allowing them to be self-sufficient and independent are things she does at our centre that parents can continue at home to support their children.

“We have play-based stations in our room, which are usually set up according to what children tell us they’re interested in at the moment, and we also have some intentional learning stations, where children are introduced to numbers, and work on recognising their names, even learning how to spell them. We also have a self-help station, with water bottles, fruits, tissues, and sunscreen, and we encourage children to help themselves to whatever they need from there,” says Miss Dipti.

What Parents Can Do

It’s important that parents understand that children are not expected to know how to read and write by the time they get to primary school, but that knowing how to go to the bathroom by themselves, how to communicate their needs and questions, how to make friends, and also how to deal with different feelings will make their first year of school a smoother transition.

So really, what parents can do to help their little ones during this transition is empower them, getting them to focus on small tasks with a couple of instructions, getting them to communicate their needs, and offer plenty of emotional support when they feel vulnerable.