Ready for school?

It seems like an instant from the moment you hold your baby in your arms, until the day they start school.  Sending them off to school is a decision fraught with anxiety.  While five years is the common age to start in Australia, parents of children born in the early months of the year face a tough decision – send them young or send them older?  Adele Amorsen, an experienced early primary teacher, explains what parents should consider. 

Classrooms in the first year of school work in many different ways.  Every classroom caters for a wide range of abilities, learning styles and behaviours and children are often expected to work independently throughout the day. 

Gone are the days of sitting in rows and reciting alphabets and time-tables.  As first year classrooms operate with a range of whole class lessons, small group sessions and individual plans, young children need to have reached certain levels of social and emotional maturity and independence.

At age five, your child’s readiness to cope with the everyday stresses of formal education will depend a great deal on their individual development and life experiences. 

The first person to consult should always be your child’s pre-school teacher.  They see children daily, in group situations and will know how your particular child will cope with the various demands of being part of a larger group of children.  They have the advantage of observing their development over the course of the year and often flag any concerns quite early in the year.

Formal assessment by an educational psychologist is another option and will help allay of confirm doubts about younger children.  And let’s not forget the mums at the gate – they see your child in a social setting, playing at their homes.  Some of the most important skills include independence, responsibility, confidence, co-operation, sharing, taking turns and organisation.

Independence and responsibility

Children need to carry out daily tasks and routines with a reasonable level of independence.  Because of the higher teacher/child ratio in the first year of school, teachers may not be able to provide as much assistance and support as in pre-school. 

Children will be expected to organise and use their belongings independently, share and co-operate and be responsible for their materials without the need of constant teacher reminders and assistance.  If a child struggles with these tasks, or takes a long time to pack up, or organise workbooks and the like, then they may be missing out on valuable learning and teaching time.

Encouraging independence and responsibility at home.

While you are ironing or folding, have your child carry their own socks, shirts etc. to their bedroom and put them away in the drawers.  You may have to be prepared to put up with messy drawers or socks in the wrong place for a while!

Children love to be given a special task that is theirs alone.  Simple tasks such as feeding the cat, giving the dog water, or setting the table will encourage a sense of responsibility.  Be realistic about your expectations.  Keep a roster or chart on the fridge as a reminder and tick off each day as the job is done.

Give children adequate notice of packing up or stopping games.  Tell them that they have ten more minutes to play and then they will have to pack up ready for lunch.  Give another warning at five minutes and then when it is pack up time, help them get started.  Make clean-up easy for young children as possible by having, for example, large toy boxes or containers that can be easily moved and filled by young children.

While shopping, have your child be responsible for one or two items.  ‘Can you remember to get the milk and the cheese?’  Have your child collect these items from the shelf and when you get home, let them be responsible for putting them away in the correct place.

Confidence

Beginning school holds an enormous range of new experiences for young children.  They will need to meet, speak to and work with, a range of different adults and children. 

In a pre-school setting these interactions are often closely monitored by the pre-school teachers as young children develop and practice their social skills.  In a primary school setting, there is less direct assistance with the skills needed to cope with the school day. 

Ideally, children’s self confidence should be developed to a level where they feel comfortable in a range of situations:

• Asking for help (from unfamiliar teachers or peers).
• Approaching groups of children who are playing games and asking to join in the game.
• Starting up a game and asking others to join in.
• Speaking in from of a group of children and adults with whom they may not be familiar.
• Working in pairs or small groups to complete a task set by the teacher (they may be required to work with children they don’t know or like).

Developing confidence at home

Model confident behaviours for your child wherever possible.  At school gatherings, introduce yourself and your family to other parents and children.  Less confident children could be helped by giving them words to say when approaching other children, such as ‘Hello, my name is Sam.  I’ve got a red truck.  Can I play too?’

A good idea is to let them practice with you or siblings until they feel confident enough to try it on a child they don’t know.  You should prepare your child for possible rejection.  If another child says you can’t play with them, teases you, or pokes a tongue at you, what can you do? 

This is not easy for young children, especially those lacking in confidence.  Many can cope when an adult is there to direct or diffuse the situation, but have difficulty when required to deal with it themselves in a play ground full of children. 

Some schools have adopted the simple motto of ‘You can’t say you can’t play’.  This is also a good rule to have in your own home.  Be proactive – invite one or two classmates over for an afternoon of play.  Children’s confidence is boosted when they are on their own ‘turf’ and everything is familiar.

Co-operation, sharing and taking turn

First year classrooms base much of their day on games and activity-based learning.  Children need to be able to co-operate, share and take turns with games and classroom equipment. 

They will work with a range of other children during the school day – some will be easy to co-operate with, some not – this is true for the playground as well.  If children find this difficult, without intervention, they can easily become stressed and anxious about the school day.

Encourage co-operation, sharing and taking turns at home.  Play games with your children and model being a good winner/loser.  Give children the words to use, for example, ‘Well done, Amanda, congratulations, you played really well,’ ‘Oh well, I lost this game.  I had fun playing.  I might win next time.  Thanks for playing with me.’

When there is a problem with sharing or turn-taking, don’t rush to fix it.  Give the children a chance to sort it out themselves, or intervene by saying ‘No-one plays unless you both work it out’.

Give children plenty of opportunity for free, unstructured, imaginative play.  When children make up their own games, they often make up their own rules.  This is a marvellous opportunity for young children to practice their skills of co-operation and negotiation.

Organisation

With a class of twenty-five or more children and one teacher, children will need to be responsible for putting lunch boxes, homework, pencil cases and so on in the correct place, ready to begin the day’s work. 

They will need to be able to keep track of their own jumpers, hats and raincoats.  Keeping their own sharp pencils, glue and scissors in the right places, so that they are easily accessible as needed, is another skill to be learnt.

Encouraging organisational skills at home

When preparing for an outing, allow enough time for your child to organise and pack their own belongings.  Talk to them about the day out and encourage them to find the items they might need themselves. 

Let children help with family events. When going on a picnic, have your child be responsible for packing the cups/cutlery/plates into the picnic basket.  Give them some strategies – count out the plates and put them on the bench, when you’re sure you have the right number, put them in the basket.

Where possible, allow your child to help with organising birthday parties.  Talk about what’s needed, make shopping lists and give them a small but important role in the process.  Most children love to do the lolly bags.

With a challenging new range of skills to learn, the adjustment to school can be difficult for children and is critical for future school success.  These days however, many schools have well-thought-out transition programs to help your pre-schooler make the change.

Young children have many schooling years ahead of them.  Starting off on the right note, with a positive, happy and confident child will help to ease the transition from pre-school to school and make the first year experience for everyone concerned.

CHECKLIST FOR PRE-ENTRY SCHOOL SKILLS

This list is by no means comprehensive, use it as a guide only.  Your child should be able to do most of these skills with some proficiency.

Social

• Play with other children at his house and theirs
• Amuse himself
• Understand social conventions e.g. not interrupting, waiting her turn
• Look after his belongings

Fine body skills

• Dress himself
• Use scissors and glue
• Thread buttons onto wool with a large needle
• Use a correct pencil grip
• Put together Lego (or other small piece toys)

Large body skills

• Throw and catch a large ball
• Ride a bike
• Hop on one leg
• Move to music

Listening skills

• Follow instructions given once
• Clap to music
• Retell stories in her own words
• Identify  and talk bout sounds – high, low, soft, loud

Language

• Identify body parts, clothes, her family, home
• Name animals and birds
• Use the telephone to talk to other family members
• Have a conversation

General

• Take shoes and socks on and off
• Tie their own shoe laces (not essential but a very handy skill!)
• Recognise their name in lower case
• Use the toilet alone
• Manage a packed lunch

Beginning school holds an enormous range of new experiences for young children. Kay Margetts, lecturer in early childhood education at Monash University and an expert in the field of transition education, comments on latest trends and research findings.

What we know about starting school

When young children first go to school, somehow they must make sense of new routines and procedures that confront them, including:

• Academic challenges
• The larger and unfamiliar environment of classrooms and playgrounds
• School and teacher expectations
• Acceptance into a new peer group
• Personal emotional adjustments
• Changes to the role and involvement of parents

Research, both in Australia and overseas, suggests that a range of factors related to the child, parents and school influence children’s transition to school.  Some of those factors may be:

The child

• Temperament
• Personality
• Gender (boys may have less well-developed social skills and more behavioural difficulties than girls).
• Older children may be more academically competent than younger children.
• Children who speak English at home have less difficulty than those who don’t.
• Social skills and experiences including an ability to play positively and co-operatively and communicate with peers.

Pre-school

• Pre-school experiences which include qualified staff and a developmentally appropriate curriculum
• Positive relationships with adults
• Opportunities to interact with groups of children their own age

Parents

• Parental expectations that are realistic and encourage self esteem and confidence

School

• The curriculum, activities and approaches to learning
• Teacher expectations
• Pairing children with a familiar playmate
• Providing parents and children with opportunities, both formal and informal, to become familiar with and feel comfortable at the school, before starting

By Adele Amorsen

BOOKS

First Day by Margaret Wild, illustrated by Kim Gamble, Allen& Unwin 1998

Margaret Wild deals with the common worries of pre-schoolers when she writes about a group of children starting school for the first time.  Knowing where the toilet is meeting the teacher and finding a friend are all new and unfamiliar territory.  By the end of the first day, Salma, Jun, Kahlil and their new friends have learnt lots of new things, shown their special skills and had fun with the help of their new teacher.

Ready For School…or Not?, by Riet Taal, Wright Books, 2000

Author Riet Taal was a kindergarten director for many years and has written a practical, user-friendly handbook which discusses a wide range of issues such as the skills necessary to start school, selecting a school and what parents can do to ease the first day.  A useful text to read in the pre-school year.

A Special Place, by Lyn Garlick, illustrated by Prerna Ghaskar

E- book written for parents to read with their child starting Kindergarten, presenting school as an exciting place where anything is possible.

Time to start school – a family guide to starting Kindergarten

E-booklet written for parents covering key areas such as organisation of the day, ways to get involved, school policies on health and nutrition and so on.

Both e-books available from the NSW Primary Schools website. 
 

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, May 2000. Updated July 2009.