Preparing your child for school

Small steps can make a big difference. Top tips to help children prepare for school.

The time when a child starts school can be very exciting and it can also be a time when a child, their parent and carer can feel a little nervous. You can help to prepare your child for school  from early on through helping them to play and learn, taking your child to parent and toddler groups, play group and enrolling them in nursery helps them learn to socialise, spend time with other children, make friends and adult carers and to start to spend time away from their parent or carer which can reduce the likelihood of separation anxiety when they start school.

There are a great deal of other things you can do to help prepare your child for school such as:

• Encourage their independence – let them experiment and work things out for themselves.
• Encourage them to get dressed independently – it doesn’t matter if they put clothes on the wrong way or are slow to get dressed
• Encourage them to use the toilet independently
• Start to let them make simple choices for example what clothes they want to wear or what they want on their sandwich
• Give them simple instructions to start to follow
• Praise them for each achievement
• Encourage social skills – arrange play dates so they can learn to share and take turns with other children and start to make friends
• Encourage your child to chat about the things that interest them, the ideas they have and how they feel
• Ask them questions to encourage them to talk ” what has been the best thing about your day?”
• Introduce new words as you chat start so they can start to increase their vocabulary
• Add variety to the day and routine – encourage time to be active (play, be outside), build in quiet time and time to relax for example playing quiet games or looking at book together
• Start to build a routine so that you child know when and how to get ready to go out for school. Regular bed times, waking times and meals times are important
• When you child gets nearer to starting school then start to talk about school, the exciting things that might happen at school, about making friends
• Visit the library and borrow books to read with your child about starting school
• Take you child on visits to the school so they can meet their teacher and see their classroom

Further reading on Health for Under 5s