What would a reception teacher expect your child of your child when they start school?

[olivo]

Just wondering really, as I was listening to another parent telling the teacher exactly what her DS could do already and began to feel a little worried that of the school's expectations.

DD will only turn 4 at the end of the month and start school the following week; she has spent 3 years at nursery so is used to listening, tidying up, following instructions, taking turns etc.she can un/dress herself, go the loo, sort out her own lunch from her lunchbox etc. She can count to 14, knows the letters and many of their sounds and can write her and her sisiter's name. that's ok, isn't it?

this lady was talking about sums, reading,being able to describe cars.....i was scared!

Your DD sounds fine :) a lot of kids won't be able to do all that.

As an ex reception teacher what I LOVE:

If they can find their own coat/lunchbox
If they can get their coat ON (this one's actually relatively rare)
Can use the toilet and is confident enough to ask to go if it's a time when that's required (obviously accidents and soggy knickers do still happen but we're getting so many kids coming into reception now in nappies, or ones who will just stand up and urinate on the floor - I kid you not)
If they can get dressed after PE (lots of schools only change shoes for the first few months) and put whatever shoes they come to school in on their own feet - I love you!

Increasingly what we're actually getting in schools (I do a lot of early years supply nowadays):
Kids who aren't even really aware of their own name
Kids coming in speaking in American accents having been fed imported cartoons as their only interaction from birth
Kids in nappies (not for a medical need) or ones who will just stand up and urinate on the floor and carry on playing

...believe me - she's well ahead of where many will be!

emptyshell !!!

not sure if my DS can put his coat on by himself though..... I'm a hurrier on the way out!

As a sanity check re doing sums - DD can just about do sums. She knows the + and - symbols, can add 1 or 2 in her head, resorts to fingers for anything bigger. Frequently writes her numbers back to front. She's just finished Year 1 and is working at the top of the range expected!

thanks, this is really reassuring. I give total credit to all the things she can do to her nursery
at the cartoon accents

By "sums" anyhow - all the most basic sums are are: I've got 2 sweets in this hand and 1 in this hand - how many do I have? I'd guess your daughter would pretty much be able to work that one out anyway!

As for fingers... I still see year 6 kids going through their fingers so frantically it looks like a helicopter trying to take off sometimes!

Coats aren't a biggie really - if they can get their arms into it it's a start (you usually end up flagging them down on their way out of the door and zipping every one on the way), it's when they just bring it to you without even trying by the end of the year that it gets a little bit soul-sapping!

Little tip for the PE shoes etc (picked up from a very wise mum of a kid I once taught). Get a marker pen and INSIDE the soles of the shoes draw an arrow on each one pointing toward the middle (-->

Our school insists on lace up shoes from the off, absolutely NO velcro allowed, so kids need to be able to tie laces but I think that's pretty unusual (we're in Australia).

:( about the American accents :(

At my DCs school they go into uniform class at 3 and on PE days they have to go in in their PE kit for the whole day. Once they get into reception they go in in their PE kit on one of the PE days, but school uniform on the other so that they start to get used to changing. In Year 1 (DS has just finished) they still do this, but that is because on one day a week they do PE in the afternoon, and other outdoor activities in the morning so it makes sense to stay in it all day.

lol, we're an army family who've spent a lot of time o'seas (ds1 was born in canada). it hadn't even occurred to me to tell school that their lapses into drawl and 'awesome' 'good jaaaaawb' weren't anything to do with the telly.

i'm also fascinated by what the yr1 teacher in the se thought when we turned up. we're as english as they come, but dd1 role-played in glaswegian. every time. but only role-play.

anyway, back to the op , recognise your (written) name and be able to use the toilet unsupervised seems to have been the main criteria around the world

I have to say when I taught reception I was just happy if they could talk regardless of the accent. I did however once teach a child who could only count and name colours in Spanish because he'd learnt them from Sky.