Starting Primary School can be an exciting milestone – the next big adventure!
But it can also bring up lots of different emotions for children and families, can’t it?
Whilst some children have resilience to cope with change, others are more vulnerable to uncertainty – and may not be able to understand the range of emotions they feel or understand the changes that are going to happen.
We also know your child’s key person helps them to feel known and understood, cared about and safe. So saying “goodbye” to their key person and nursery class can raise insecurities and worries about being “known” and having their needs met in their new school.
Our experience tells us that when children have visited their new school, they often find it hard to return to nursery. They are looking for closeness and connection, reassurance and resilience from you.
It may be that they need you to stay with them, to just ‘be’ or to talk about what they’ve done at school during the visit, and to acknowledge the variety of feelings they may be experiencing.
We know children often feel a mix of emotions – joy, excitement and sadness, anxiety, worry – and we want to help them feel confident about starting their new school, talk about how they’re feeling and help them understand and plan for the experience.
How we help your child get ready for their move to Primary School
Acknowledge and talk about feelings
Children’s emotional well-being is prioritised. We use whiteboards to draw feelings and feelings cards to show the range of emotions children may be feeling about leaving nursery and moving to primary school.
Map out the journey – now, next, future
Summer is a long time and September a long-way-away. We like to use visual representations of time using calendars and drawings of what’s happening now at the end of Nursery, next in Summer and when Primary School starts.
Grouptimes on Primary School
Learning together about shared experiences is important for children to develop empathy, understanding and resilience together. At Grouptimes we use books about school, dress up in uniform, look at Welcome Books from Primary Schools and ask children to draw what they’d like to do when they get to school.
Reading books about ‘My first day at school’
There are many books on starting school and we cuddle up with children to share pictures and words about school life – all about new routines and new relationships – as well as cloakrooms, classrooms, toilets and lunchtimes.
You can help them by doing some of these things too.
You can also find Becky and Lilli talking about it on our Instagram reels.
And you can find more information about helping your child get ready for Reception here:
