From Reception to Year 1

[Crazycatladyx5]

I'm being moved to Year 1 after spending my whole 20 year teaching career in Reception. I know I'm lucky to have stayed in a year group I love for so long but new Head is having a shake up. I'm VERY passionate about Early Years (used to coordinate it till my daughter was nearly 2 & I gave up my management post to spend more time with her - 7 years ago.) I'm gutted to be leaving Reception. I'm also worried as I know very little about Year 1 - any advice would be welcome please.

[brilliotic]

Perhaps post in staffroom? That's where teachers mostly hang out...

We had a great teacher for reception, then the new head 'mixed things up' - well, when the Y6 teacher left, a new teacher was hired who was a EY specialist. So the long-standing reception teacher was moved (to Y2 in this case).

She taught Y2 for two years and then left to a different school where she could be head of EY...


From a parent's perspective, and maybe particularly the perspective of an August baby parent, I would encourage you to keep in mind that some of your Y1 kids will be the same age upon starting Y1 as some of your reception kids where on starting reception. Just 5. Accordingly, they will benefit from all the things you (presumably) did well in reception.

The 'best' school I visited when choosing schools had Y1 set up very, very similarly to YR. Even in Y2 they still incorporated many of the successful elements from EY. It had a recent OFSTED outstanding and, if you consider staff retention as an indicator, very happy teachers. (Sadly it was just a little too far for us).
I would really like an EY specialist in Y1, provided they kept teaching to their strengths and resisted pressure to become all 'formal learning and worksheets'.

So I wish you the best of luck!

[MrsPreston11]

I'm another who would be overjoyed to hear a YR teacher was going to be in Y1.

It's a step that makes me nervous, you can easily worry that suddenly your 5 year old is going to be treated differently to the lovely time they've had in reception.

My youngest moves up and I keep having to remind myself that it's going to be fine, there are still toys in Y1 etc etc.

[grasspigeons]

I'm office staff so probably can't give the best perspective, but they did this to a teacher at my school and she's been ok!

they seem to follow the EYFS curriculum until the first half term anyway and use that framework for assessing progress/attainment and then move onto the KS1 framework in autumn 2 and they gradually get more formal as the year goes on - so it might not be too bad. You might be able to grow in the role with the reception children going up.

[catkind]

Could you think of it as just carrying on from where you left off with same (or similar) cohort of kids but some new toys to play with (i.e. y1 resources)?

[Crazycatladyx5]

Thank you everyone.

[FullOfJellyBeans]

I'm a parent not a teacher but I would love it if my DC had had a teacher like their YR teacher in Y1 and continued the more play based approach!