Starting reception in September what to expect

[New2schoolrun]

Hi! My child is starting reception in September I just wondered if anyone had any advice on how to make the morning rush of getting ready go smoothly? Anything you’ve learnt along the way? Also what I can expect of the first week of reception for my child? And myself really. It’s the first time I’ve ever done this and I’m nervous but want to be best prepared. I have two girls aged 4&2 so will need to get one ready for school and one ready for the school run and to then come home. We will be walking and the youngest in the pram I expect.
thank you in advance for reading this and getting back to me :)

You lot have got me crying at the thought of crying! 😂 definitely going to shed a tear. How is she starting school already?!

I'd say either or to be honest. My children's tiredness/sleep hasn't been affected by school. Everyone said they'd sleep better and long after a full day but it's boohockey 😂

I cried on my daughters last day of nursery. She was the last one to get picked up so the staff clapped us out 😂 so I thought I'd be a mess on her first day but no I was emotion less lol
There was so many people, parents, teachers and other children crying, I barely had a moment to cry myself

Make absolutely sure that you have read all the info about timings, what they need to take in and what they’ll be doing.

If they have shorter days at the beginning, don’t be that parent who has scheduled an Important Meeting and hadn’t realised the child would only be in school from 9:30 until noon for the first fortnight.

As a teacher my advice is
I think it is important to remember that your child will be one of 30 children. Adjust your expectations for handovers accordingly.
Also adjust your expectations in terms of hands on adult support at school-the aim of reception year is to learn through play and gain independence as they progress through it. So, if you want your child to drink all their water bottle/eat all of their snack remind them yourself at drop off. It is not the class teacher's job to do this. I think a rough guide in terms of speaking on your child's behalf is that a parent can complain/chat to the teacher about something three times. Any more and you are "that parent". In terms of talking to the teacher if your child does have issues, please remember how your child acts at school will be different to at home, and a child's version of something may not be the gospel truth. Please be assured that all adults who teach your child are professionals who know what they are doing.
As a mum my advice is
Accept that your child will sometimes have a bad day at school. It's a hard feeling, because we want to protect our children from any bad times, but, actually, it is inevitable and part of how they begin to gain vital life skills. M role as a mum is to help my children navigate difficulties with friends/school, not make the difficulties disappear.

You will be blessed by the staff if your child can dress themselves (PE), put their shoes and coat on, including zipping it up and you have LABELLED every, single thing.

As to mornings, just make sure uniform is ready the night before. Mine used to have their breakfast in their PJs then upstairs for teeth, toilet and dressed. If they were ready in time they could watch tv till it was time to leave, so they soon learned to do that for a bonus ten minutes.

Don't carry their bag for them, they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves too!

@wafflingworrier

Oh dear god the handover when the circus doors open . Two weeks to go 🙌 🤦‍♀️. It will be different this year though as we have never had such a high intake of children with SEN. We also struggled to recruit a TA last year.

dd2 starts next week.
From memory the mornings are actually easier as no need to sort a lunchbox.
Top tip from memory of the older one is to let them sit down with a snack and tv when they get in. It was the only thing that prevented the exhaustion meltdowns in the early days and that was despite nursery 5 days a week!

😎I'm teaching year 2 this year, so handovers will be ninja fast!

This is good advice

You're very lucky. We have no school at all the first week of September, then the next week one day of no school, two of only two hours, one morning plus lunch, and then the Friday is the first full day. It's a DELIGHT for working parents, I can assure you.

Thank you, I'm doing the first full day but I might do a few more as well then. The childminder seems lovely but neither of us know her!

😂😂😂

Mine are going into y1 and y4 and these are the tips I've learnt so far.

Get yourself a jar and fill it with pound coins and loose change which you will inevitably need for children in need / non uniform day / jeans for genes days etc etc and any other time they need a pound to take to school.

Sniff out class WhatsApp and Facebook groups and join them. They are a pita 90% of the time but the 10% that is useful is very useful.

Do NOT be that parent who absolutely has to speak to the teaching staff every single morning for 10 minutes. Asides from taking up their time you will also piss off other parents who might have a genuine need to mention something important before they dash off to work. I speak from experience.

As above do not expect a handover. You will be told if there is a problem.

Label everything. Anything you don't label, do not expect to see again. I did smile when someone in the R WhatsApp group last year said that her DD had lost a logo cardigan (so identical to everyone else's) but they hadn't got round to labelling it. And even labelled stuff turns up in lost property.

When your child starts bringing books home, read with them 3 times a week. To start with the books won't have words so get them talking about the books.

Don't try and force friendships between your child and your best friend's child. Let them pick their own friends.

Expect invites to parties and rsvp in good time but equally don't think anything of your child not being invited to every party.

My youngest responded well to a heart drawn on both of our wrists in permanent marker, so when he missed me during the day he could press it and get a virtual hug.

Primary school teacher here.

Agree with making sure child knows what is in their bag. The number of times you ask a child if they have X Y or Z in their bag and they look at you blankly and say they don't know, so we go to check bag and voila! it was there all the time!

Also agree with name labels in EVERYTHING, including shoes, plimsolls, coats, water bottles, glasses case if they wear glasses, snack box if they bring one, sunhat/baseball cap, etc. When I've handed out water bottles at hometime to an EYFS or KS1 class, normally on average about 4 bottles out of 30 have actual names on, so you hand those out first and then you're just endlessly repeating, "Whose is the dinosaur one? The unicorn one? The Spiderman one? The pink one? The other pink one?"!!!" There were SO MANY unclaimed bottles at the end of last term. Massive Brownie points for all parents who actually name them.

And don't get me started on parents who say, "He's lost his jumper, it's red" (all the 100 unnamed jumpers in lost property are red).

Always have spare pants in the bag, even the best toilet trained children can have accidents in Reception, usually because they're so busy playing they forget to go to the loo. And a plastic bag for any wet clothes.

And teachers will love you if your child regularly returns their reading book and the reading books don't disappear home and never return, or don't return for weeks, or come back looking like they've been through the washing machine...

Also check all your child's pockets when they get home to weed out random toys they have pocketed from school or disgusting objects they picked up in the playground.

a parent can complain/chat to the teacher about something three times. Any more and you are "that parent". or the teacher needs to pay attention when it's got to the second time!

If you want to talk to the teacher about something and it’s going to be more than 1 minute - email the school with “FAO Ms Xxx” in the subject line- they will send it to the teacher, if you send it early enough / the night before, they should have had chance to read it before you arrive at drop off. This helps speed things up or they’ll book a time to talk to you on the phone.

For those saying a packed lunch gives you an idea of what’s actually eaten - many schools encourage kids to throw away their packed lunch rubbish before putting lunch boxes back, dc1 was just throwing out half a sandwich wirh that. Still ask them.

Expect a lot of school emails. So many you’ll be back here asking about virtual admin assistants.

I’ve never taken a snack for pick up, they have it when they get home.

Agree with telling them what’s in their bag, if you’re adding something then make sure they know as they’ll come home with it! Even in year 6!

OP, for the journey, does your four year old already scoot? If not, get them scooting asap because it will make the journey much easier.

I was struck my your comment that you are their voice. You are, of course, but only to an extent. I found that Reception when DC really needed to speak up for themselves with the grown ups. So they need to be able to say if, for example, they’re in wet clothes and need some help. Or if someone is hitting them. And so on.

I’ve seen some bewildered Reception parents upset that teachers and TAs haven’t noticed this stuff but they just can’t be on top of everyone so the kids do need to be able to ask for help (or learn how to sort stuff out for themselves appropriately).

Strongly agree with the advice upthread to leave earlier than you think you need to.

Lots of good advice already upthread, but lots which will completely depend on what works for your family. For instance we found reading in the morning much better - dd was way too mentally tired after school and always got frustrated with it. But you’ll find your rhythm with things like that. Similarly lots have said get dressed first then breakfast- we’ve always done the other way round and it’s worked for us.

anyway, onto first day tips from our experience…

• set off ten mins before you usually will. We were surprised some well meaning neighbours came out to wish dd good luck etc but nearly made us late!
• try and not make the first day of school into a huge deal (even though it is), you need to be breezy about it so as not to add to nerves!

and some more general school tips:

• rather than asking questions about her day I’d always tell dd about my day on the way home, she’d then often reciprocate. Either this or we’d play “2 truths and a lie”, I got a bit more detail then!
• keep an emergency £1 or £2 coin in a little envelope in kids bag. For the day you forget there is a cake sale or poppies to buy or something.
• Any email that comes from school asking to pay for a school trip or whatever- if at all possible I pay the thing right there and then and put it straight on the calendar, otherwise I’ll forget

I’m sure there are more that have slipped my mind! Good luck!

Expect extreme tiredness ( I ended up giving mine a half tea and bed at half 6 at this stage!). Give yourself plenty of time in the morning so you're not yelling 'put your shoes on'!
And for you - I was suddenly acutely aware I was raising a human at this point. I know it sounds daft but up until this point it was all fun and rainbows. Suddenly you're thrown into the education system and it's almost like returning to school yourself, including friend politics in the playground.

Love this thread. My son is starting reception in a fortnight too and I'm definitely far more nervous than he is!

Meltdowns and nits!

They are so tired for the first few weeks and then you get constant messages about nits in the class!