1. What next and how can parents help?
Nearly time for school
What next and how can parents help?

2. School Congratulate yourselves They are ready and will be fine........
Maybe not straightaway but once they are into the rhythm and routine of school
Be positive and enthusiastic
Get the uniform and shoes sorted in plenty of time
Label and name – EVERYTHING!

3. In their first report just for early years:
“Parents are the most important influence on any child’s early years....every parent needs a short list of essential skills that they can take responsibility for ensuring their child has mastered before the first day of school”

4. Ofsted’s list for school readiness
To sit still and listen
To be aware of other children
To understand the word ‘no’ and the borders it sets for behaviour
To understand the word ‘stop’ and that such a phrase might be used to prevent damage
To be potty trained and able to go to the loo
To recognise their own name
To speak to an adult to ask for needs
To be able to take off their coat and put on shoes
To talk in sentences
To open and enjoy a book

5. How you can help?
“Perhaps the greatest support a parent can provide is regular interest in their child’s school day, reinforcing the content of lessons as well as listening to their child read each evening. Just a few minutes assisted reading each day can clearly have a considerable benefit. This is also an excellent way to break children away from electronic screens, such as televisions, computers and tablets. There is growing and compelling evidence to show that children who have at least an hour away from an electronic screen before sleeping, perform better in school tests and exams.”

6. Things are going to go wrong..
School is the perfect time for children to make and learn from mistakes: they are surrounded by similar individuals all doing the same in a forgiving environment. Protection from errors at all costs does nothing to help the child and usually makes matters worse for the child in the long run
“a child who does not learn to overcome challenges will take much longer to grow in self-confidence and a child who takes their problems home for the parents to resolve the next day is not learning the skills of independence and conflict resolution”

7. Children whose parents encourage them to take responsibility for their own problem-solving find it easier to face life’s challenges with a smile – and tend to resolve those challenges more successfully in the future.
“Hovering over your kids – being overprotective and hyper-attentive can be harmful for character development. Contrary to protecting them from every school mark and protecting them from making mistakes, actually supporting them when they failed would make them more successful in the long run”

8. Early Years Foundation Stage
From September 2015, Reception classes are introducing a baseline assessment.
All children will be assessed within their first half term at school.
Don’t worry if they go down in their development levels based on their transition report from nursery – this is quite common. They are in a new environment which takes time to settle into.
Literacy is one of the most challenging areas of the EYFS early learning goals and here are a few reasons why:

9. The English Language...... Pea Sea Eye have a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
Eye strike the quays and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather I am rite oar wrong
It shows me straight aweigh
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee four two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong
I’ve run this poem threw it
Eye am shore yore pleas two no
It’s letter perfect in its weigh
My chequer tolled me sew

10. I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through!
Well done! And now you wish perhaps
To learn of more familiar traps
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead
For Goodness sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt

11. A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear
And then there’s does and rose and lose
Just look them up: and goose and choose
And cork and walk and word and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive –
I’d mastered it when I was five!

12. What can parents do to help?
Read, read, read with your child
talk and listen to what they say
help with mark making
writing for a purpose - diary, lists, maps – whatever takes their interest
ensure they have time when they occupy themselves
but make sure there is time for 1:1 from parents
Help with phonics:

13. Thursday 19th November from 3.30
So it’s goodbye from us....
Thank you for your support – we hope you and your child have had a great time at Tiggy’s –
please do come back and let us know how you are all getting on. We love seeing the children return in their uniforms, looking very grown up.
Our afternoon tea party for this summers’ leavers will be on
Thursday 19th November from 3.30
Keep in touch – like our facebook page!