Anxiety about leaving nursery and keyworker

[JBeanGarden]

My DD is 4 and attends preschool 4 days a week at a private nursery. She’s developed a really wonderful bond with her key worker. They have amazing chats, share stories about life outside nursery and have a really good relationship. DD is able to communicate very well and can use language to describe how she is feeling. Recently the excitement that she has felt around going to school has transferred to sadness and resistance. She will be going to school with many friends, including her best friend, which brings a good element of familiarity. It’s a really great school with lots of similar facilities to nursery. What concerns DH and I, is that she will be focussed on how much she misses her key worker. Has anybody else handled this transition where there is a strong bond? We have mentioned to the nursery, but wondered if anything we can do at home will support her better?

We have a broadly similar situation with our DS who also starts reception in September.

He’s been at a fantastic nursery for 3 years and has created a very close bond with his key worker who I know he’ll miss.

To prepare him for this we have tried to really build up the excitement for him about moving up to school while at the same time highlighting how many younger children there are now at nursery so that he understands it’s time to leave. His key worker has also helped with this. In his mind he now sees her role as looking after what he calls the babies so that the bigger children can go to school. In essence we and her have explained to him how he’s outgrown nursery and everything associated with it including his key worker.

He appears to be very accepting of this now which we’re pleased about as it is a big transition for him as he doesn’t know any of the other children at his new school.

He will be losing contact with not only his key worker but also his close friends who he’ll only be able to see occasionally once he starts school.

The nursery have been very helpful in part because most of the children are in a similar position. There are 10 leavers going to 9 different schools so virtually all will have fresh starts without familiar faces whether that be key workers or friends.

He is now genuinely excited about the prospect of going to school. I just hope he settles in and finds some new friends quickly.

It's a bit late to implement this now, but with my DD we slowly introduced her to the school preschool. At first she was in nursery 4 days, and then 3 days with one at school preschool until by the end of term she was only at nursery 1 day a week.

You could look at whether the school holiday club is open to rising Reception children.

There will also be a lot of transition events- picnics and so on.

I would be wary of letting it be too much of a big deal and making the anxiety into a thing. If she says she's nervous, acknowledge that its normal to get a bit nervous about starting a new thing and then remind her of all the fun she's going to have and how brilliant she's going to be at school.

we were in similar situation 2 year ago.

to be totally honest I tried to not make it a massive thing.
i spoke and acknowledged he was sad to be leaving her but always finished the conversation with something exciting about his new school.
he was absolutely fine in the end.

DDs nursery key worker regularly babysits for us, which she loves. It’s obviously expensive, but it’s lovely to have the relationship continuing.

We went back to my daughters nursery to give them a homemade thank you card a few weeks after school started so she’d know she was going to see them again. Honestly, by the end of the first term she barely remembered the staff. It’s just me that is nostalgic for the lovely time and relationships she had there… she’ll be fine. I wouldn’t make it a big thing.