School Readiness   - Sue Asquith - Early Childhood Consultant

Award winning international early childhood consultant who was the content developer on the DfE funded project Starting School Together – Sue shares some of her top tips for parents and childcare practitioners with us!

What do we mean by school ready?

There is an on-going debate about what “school ready” actually means!  Is there a balance to be had between children being ready for school and school being ready for the children? 

Back in the summer term of 2022 I asked teachers what “school ready” skills they thought were important. Here’s what they said:

533 teachers consider that children being independent, managing their own personal hygiene was important – this was the top ‘school ready’ skill

470 mentioned children being able to play alongside others happily

346 teachers said having the confidence to separate from their parents/carers

291 said being able to manage their own belongings (carrying own bags, gathering belongings to go home, etc)

238 said that being a skilful communicator was important

152 mentioned being able to dress and undress (i.e. able to manage their coats and changing for PE)

106 teachers said being able to tell an adult they feel unwell or if something hurts

86 mentioned being able to respond to an adult when spoken to

64 mentioned children being able to recognise their name in print 

37 mentioned listening and attention skills to be able to listen to a story

24 teachers said willing to have a go at a task independently with another 2 people, mentioning being willing to try new activities and join in

Only 10 teachers mentioned being able to write their own name and only 1 teacher said that knowing their phonic sounds was important!

There is not a single defined statement about what ‘school ready’ means, but we can see the main skills teachers would like to see outlined above.

In summary, it is helpful if children arrive at school as skilful communicators with confidence to part from their parents/carers, speak to their teachers. the social skills to make friends and the ability to manage their own personal hygiene. 

‘School ready’ does not mean children knowing their sounds, learning letters, writing their names, being able to read, etc.  In the UK (unlike some of our European counterparts) children start school at the tender age of 4 or 5 years old.  They are still young and still developing skills, building the foundations for all future learning and life experiences. Therefore, how they feel about starting school and how this transition is supported and managed is very important.

What is transition?

If you look the word transition up, you will find a definition such as ‘a change from one form or type to another, or the process by which this happens.’

There are lots of transitions in early childhood – moving from milk feeds to weaning, starting childcare, transitions from nappies to using the toilet, etc.  If adults support these changes in a positive way (and all adults involved are consistent), children build resilience.

During the COVID lockdown of 2020 many children spent periods of time away from their usual childcare settings with breaks in routines during periods of local lockdown, burst COVID childcare bubbles or self-isolating due to being COVID positive or someone in their family having COVID, etc.  Whilst these times may be distant memories for us now, our children may remember some of the stop-start routines during this time.  Undoubtedly, lots of children will be excited about starting big school, but for some. their experiences throughout the pandemic may add confusion or worry to the prospect of starting school. 

An important part of our roles as parents, carers, childminders, pre-school and nursery practitioners is to prepare children for the next stage in their lives. We may focus more on “school readiness” during the summer term for our pre-school children, but the skills that children need to “be school ready” are a gradual learning process throughout early childhood.  Here are some examples (not an exhaustive list):

• Having positive relationships with adults and other children.
• Being able to understand what people say/follow simple instructions.
• Able to speak to other children and adults.
• Enjoy songs, rhymes and stories.
• Be able to manage their own personal hygiene.
• Physical skills such as walking, running, climbing stairs, able to thread (e.g. chunky beads onto a shoe lace), use plastic tweezers or tongs to pick small items up, etc to build fine motor skills (muscles) for writing.
• Enjoy walks to the park, cooking, baking, stories, etc, to build up experiences, learn new words and concepts (such as about the weather, the shapes and numbers you might see, the sounds you can hear, mixing ingredients changes the appearance of the mixture, talking about what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel, etc).

In the summer term and over the summer holiday you could:

• Read stories about starting school.
• Provide children with opportunities to try on items of school uniform (items of uniform to role play in childcare settings or a uniform fashion show for friends and family at home).
• Take a walk past the school.
• Ask the school for photos of the school, the classroom, and the teachers to make books and displays with the children. Alternatively use an internet enabled devise with the children to research the school; there are sometimes photos and virtual tours to explore.
• Teachers sometimes visit childcare settings to meet the children or they may invite children to school on a specific day to visit.
• Childcare settings could write a summative assessment/transition report with parents.
• Parents could use this time to adjust bedtime so that children get enough sleep and practise the morning routines so that breakfast, washing, teeth cleaning and dressing are down to a fine art before September