Coronavirus - Ready for school

It seems odd to be writing about transitioning our children to school when I can’t see them, can’t hear them and haven’t spoken to these little people in weeks.

What would usually be a very busy time – preparing the children for their impending move to school, liaising with teachers, talking to parents – is certainly not the same this year.

We have got to come up with new ideas on how to support transitions – new ways to support children who may already be anxious about going to school and are now spending so much time at home that the transition is going to be a little harder than it should have been.

Collating information

All children should now have been offered a place at primary school, and it is vital that settings are still collating the information for schools so that the planning can still be put into place behind the scenes.

I have contacted each parent of our school-leavers to find out where their child will be going to school and asked if they would keep us informed if they are appealing the decision of the school that their child has been allocated. This means we will be able to support them with an appeal and we can also build a picture of where children will be allocated and moving to.

Line of communication

As soon as children were allocated their place at primary school we started to liaise with the teaching staff. The majority of schools are still open, and those that aren’t are still monitoring their emails.

It is important that a line of communication is opened with school as early as possible, especially as face-to-face meetings won’t be happening at the moment and children are quite possibly going to miss the opportunity of having teachers visit them in nursery and/or at home. Just making the link with each school is the beginning of the transition process.

Sharing learning

Information that is usually passed between setting and school can still be done effectively. For many settings this already happens via telephone and email, which can continue for this academic year.

However, for settings that normally meet with teachers to talk through individual children, the format will, of course, have to change or be completed while adhering to social distancing measures.

Reports can be shared and discussed with school teachers. At our setting, we have set up a home hub for parents to post pictures and activities that their children have been getting up to, and we can use this as evidence to update learning journals and assessments as much as possible.

Home and nursery hub

The home and nursery learning hub has been and still is an excellent ongoing resource that we use daily. It means that as practitioners we can post activities and ideas, read stories to the children and allow our parents to know that we are still here to support them.

We have spoken to parents regularly on the phone and to most parents whose children are getting ready to move to school.

The hub allows us to post to a private social media group, which is closely monitored and safe. We are able to put parents in touch with each other when we know their children will be going to the same school.

They have been sending their appreciation as many were feeling isolated and anxious about their child going to school. This anxiety has been heightened by not being able to have the face-to-face conversations they usually would in nursery when they found out what school their child was allocated. A simple telephone call or email seems to have made parents feel much better and not alone.

School readiness

The hub is also enabling us to support parents with the skills children need for school.

We know the importance of skills such as dressing and undressing independently, fastening their coat, using the bathroom on their own and managing their hygiene needs, listening to instructions and having the confidence to ask questions.

We have been adding activities to aid parents with teaching their children at home through play and fun activities.

Some settings are providing parents with stories about moving to school, which they can read to their child at home. The setting either sends out the book or emails information about online resources.

We are also asking if schools can send a short video of the teacher, classroom and school so we can familiarise the children without visiting this year. We understand that this is very different from usual, and we also have absolute confidence in our local schools to adjust their settling-in processes.

This might not be the case across the country, but we find the more open and honest we are with our feeder schools and what our children will require, the more accommodating they are.

Settling in again

In addition to those children moving on to school, we are also going to have a huge settling and transition process in the nursery when we return to some sort of normality.

Many children will be moving onto new rooms, and for the majority we will have to resettle them back into nursery life. This is going to take considerable planning and is very hard to do when we don’t know when we will be fully open and the stipulations and measures the Government will put into place.

Each month we are forecasting the number of children in each room based on previous numbers and children who have had birthdays or who we think will be ready for their next move.

There is an element of sticking your finger in the wind here, but it is the best we can do right now. We are still taking enquiry calls, especially for babies, and adding people to our waiting list. We have been booking in show-arounds once it is safe to do so.

It is so hard to plan what may happen while we must also concentrate on keeping the nursery viable. We are all in this together and no matter what is thrown at us, I know the early years providers and staff will do their absolute best for their families and children.