July and August are the months that we see many of our children leave us to go to ‘BIG’ school. This year things have been very different as many children will not have had transition visits into school or indeed had a visit from their new teachers.
However, don’t fear we have been working with all our children to support this new and exciting transition into school and will continue to do so throughout the summer.
We have strong links with all our feeder schools and talk frequently with teaching staff about the children who will be moving onto them. We send an end of term report to school with all your children’s milestones recorded and an overview of who they are, what they enjoy doing and if they will need any additional support in any area of learning and development.
We have made school transition books for all the children who are leaving us which we share daily whilst they are at nursery. The children love to share the pictures with each other of where they are going and who is going to be their new teacher. They all show great pride and enthusiasm in sharing these and this continues to support their up and coming adventure.
Things you can do at home to support your child’s transition into school:
Getting dressed and undressed and using the toilet independently are key skills which can be encouraged at home. These simple things can be really helpful, too: getting familiar with numbers, letters and sounds, singing nursery rhymes, and just doing things with your children like baking, getting out in the garden if you have one and simply chatting with them. It is also very important to help your child develop independence skills and good sleeping habits.
Things are uncertain at the moment, but this doesn’t need to affect the way you talk about transition with your children. We approach a lot of things thinking like an adult, but children tend to be more resilient than adults in many ways. They don’t need to know that things aren’t happening the way they would do normally. They take things at face value and tend to throw themselves into most things – we just sometimes need to shield them from our own worries. The most important thing is to make this a really exciting time and it is really exciting, for them and for their school. We will miss you all and look forward to hearing all about your adventures so please keep in touch, you will always be a part of our Granby family.
