Getting Ready for Reception

We understand that all children develop at their own pace, and that we’re all learning from birth. When it’s time to start school, some children will need more help than others.

There are key skills that schools expect children to be learning before their first day. Practising these will make your child’s journey to Reception as positive as possible.

If your child is already at nursery, in pre-school, or with a childminder, those professionals will work with you and your child to help get them ready.

There’s lots you can do at home to build your child’s confidence and independence, helping them feel emotionally and practically prepared to start school. Use this link to the website Home - Starting Reception or lok at the downloaded document Starting-Reception in the link below.

Getting ready to Write

In Fox Class the children are offered daily activities that will support the development of fine skills in their hands and fingers.

Children should have strength and dexterity in their hands and fingers before being expected to master the daunting task of handwriting.

Such activities might include:

• picking up objects using oversized  tweezers
• activating and playing with wind-up toys
• play dough
• threading
• drawing in the sand
• shaving foam, oats and tea with a stick, feathers, or straws
• using clothes pegs to help hang up clothes or pictures

These activities are fun and developmentally appropriate and offered on a regular basis will support the development of the correct pencil grasps when your child is ready.

Supporting language development

Small talk is a new project which helps parents turn the activities they are already doing with their child every day into new opportunities to build their child’s language skills.

Small Talk aims to close the language gap which sees children from the most disadvantaged communities in England starting primary school with a vocabulary 19 months behind their peers– a gap most will never recover from.

Visit the Small talk website using this link:

https://small-talk.org.uk/