Starting school

[Mumofcrazy2]

Hi, can u have your opinions please.

Ds4 is due to start school this September. Once placements have been announced I assume we will have a meeting with the reception teacher.
Do we tell her about his capabilities? Dp thinks we should but I'm thinking it's going to come across as though we have hothoused him and don't want to step off badly. We have far from hothoused him.
I feel we should let the teacher work out things for herself, as she probably will anyway?

What are his capabilities?

He's reading well (orange books) and understanding. Telling and having a good go at writing stories. Adding, subtracting using objects and a number line. Knows his number bonds. Tells the time. Able to count money and give correct change. Counts in 2s,5s and 10s. Lots of other things, I think hes quite advanced all round

Tell her about him as a person, let her discover the academic stuff for herself.

If you have an individual meeting with the teacher before he starts, she’s going to ask questions about what he can do. So just answer them.

She will be thrilled if he can put on his coat and fasten it.

Thank you both.

Yes he can put on his coat and fasten it, along with all of his other self care, using a knife and fork, open food packets etc

Yes tell the teacher definitely.

You may or may not have a meeting some schools do and some don't our school does a very brief introduction in june/July just children and teacher altogether for 30mimutes or so while head talks to all parents and them they do home visits in September- but again many school dont do this. Our school don't ask about any academic type things but you could ask questions then.

Ok thank you.

I know they have done parent meetings for several years so I do expect one. Obviously they could do something different this year though.

If there is one is it worth me collecting things like his writing to show her?

It won't hurt, but the school should pick this up very quickly.

Just remember that it is actually the other stuff that they are watching for in Reception. How to listen, sit, follow instructions, not get distracted, cope with noise or behaviour from others without melting down etc.

Pretty much every parent's evening I had in infants was 20% about the academics, 80% about the other stuff. And I had a couple of bright, well behaved DC's.

I totally understand that cuddly. I had family telling me he was ready for school last year but no way was he emotionally ready.
The only way I could get him to be quiet was to read to him! Making a phone call was a nightmare!!

Yes take examples

Similar here. Our school has a meeting with the preschool and preschool have said they will be making it very clear about her abilities. They have warned us the school will want to do a baseline assessment themselves but she is already being assessed as at end of reception year in preschool and all of the examples from her learning journals will be given to school so they will know.

Preschool have said some children don't do well in EYFS and our daughter is likely to be one of those who need more structure and order than freeplay

I think communication is key.

In my ds's case, it was similar to JustMarried, the school was aware of his abilities before we said anything, from communication with preschool/nursery. They asked us to bring in the books he reads at home, wanted to see his diary when I mentioned he writes it regularly.
At the start of the reception, they have done some test to check his reading age, and let him take sample yr2 sats at the start to see his maths ability.

DD's school had a general information meeting for all the parents and then arranged home visits.

At DD's visit the teacher asked her what kinds of things she liked to do in her spare time. DD listed a few and said that she liked reading too. The teacher had brought a story book in her bag to read to DD but DD read it to the teacher instead.

All of the children had baseline assessments when they started school, so any other relevant things were picked up then.