Child starting reception in September - your best tip please!

[Coffeeonadrip]

As above, daughter starts reception in September. She's an only child. What's your best tip to survive this with some sanity intact?? She's been going to preschool so she should be ok separation and making friends wise. Will I be ok though?

We didn't do any after school activities until Y3.
They were just too tired and it made fitting in reading, spellings etc hard work.
We did stuff on the weekend.

Have the bags and lunch done the night before.

Everyone dressed before breakfast- for some reason time disappeared if we didn't do this.

Have a stash of £1 coins in the car/at home ready for all the random stuff schools want them for.

Label everything.
Depending on the uniform they and have a couple of non logo tops from supermarkets as spares when by thurs/fri there is lunch/paint down them and you havent had chance to wash them.
A calendar on the wall or set reminders on alexa for all the parties/world book days/needing cereal boxes etc
If you have a parent app for school things and you have a partner make sure they are on it too otherwise you will feel you are, if you work, working plus being a PA full time to a busy reception child
Buy books/lego sets (£5/7 in our area) and birthday cards I'm the sale or at the works and have a few in the house for parties (pre covid)

We founds sainsburys really good quality but not that generous so we size up

Be careful how you phrase your questions at the end of the day.
"What did you do today?" Will get the answer "nothing / dunno"
"Did you like playing Tig at breaktime?" Will get an in-depth answer about how she didn't play Tig she played .... And then she went inside and did ... And Mrs X said
..." And the conversation will flow.

Be prepared to have no idea what they've been doing at school all day. The school will deluge you with emails about all sorts of inconsequential things but will not tell you even vaguely what the intended curriculum/topics/ rough lesson plan for the week may be.
You can figure out if they've been painting by the stains on their uniform, and if you're lucky your kid might decide to tell all at bedtime when they are meant to be quiet. Otherwise no clue.
Also they will tell you nobody played with them but you will be told by another parent that he was playing with their kid all week.
Enjoy!

Asda from my experience

Second Asda for uniform

Make sure she can dress herself including turning her clothes the right way round after taking them off for PE. Can she zip up her own coat? Button a cardigan, put on tights?

Oh and label everything! A distinctive keyring on a bookbag is very useful to help them spot it in a pile of identical ones.

Put huge, brightly coloured tags on jackets so they are easy for little hands to hang up on chunky cloakroom pegs.
Don't send anything expensive in, ever.
See an extra Nametape up the sleeve of a jacket so when the other child's parent renames it as theirs you can still reclaim it back !

If you’re working Look into after school and book now to get a place
Buy a stash of generic happy birthday cards keep in a drawer for late notifications

Asda school uniform is really good quality

Buy as much uniform as you can afford and certainly at least five polo shirts, so you only need to wash once a week. One year in high school I somehow managed to buy 10 shirts (still no clue why) which meant I only had to wash white school shirts once a fortnight - bliss!

Don't buy an expensive coat and find out what the shoe policy is - in DS primary they had to wear indoor shoes so I never bought him 'school shoes' - he just went to school in his normal trainers.

And label everything you want to see again including knickers and socks when doing swimming

Give school dinners a try. They are free until year 3 and save a lot of hassle with packed lunch. They often have a jacket potato or wrap/sandwich option.

Also you will have opinions about things, but your DD may just want to fit in. A friend's DD wears 'modesty shorts' because she likes doing cartwheels: should she need to? No, but she wants to so DF lets her.

Label everything, a sharpie is quick, easy & cheap.
Hairspray before washing gets whiteboard pen off polos & shirts.
Make sure dc can dress themselves, sorry but staff don’t have time to help dress 30 kids.

Asda for uniform, however due to shortages we ended up with M&S summer dresses, they’re a much more vibrant colour and haven’t faded like the Asda ones. Although they’re more expensive, I’d get them again.

If she’s having school dinners (free in KS1 here) you should be able to find the menu online. We went through the choices for each day and explained what they were. Meatball sub was a revelation . We’ve only had one day where they’ve picked something they didn’t like. Egg Mayo sandwich, which was strange because we’d tried it at home a few days before and didn’t like it. Apparently they ‘wanted’ to like it

Hairspray before washing gets whiteboard pen off polos & shirts wow never knew that

@IggyAce

Label everything, a sharpie is quick, easy & cheap. Hairspray before washing gets whiteboard pen off polos & shirts. Make sure dc can dress themselves, sorry but staff don’t have time to help dress 30 kids.

All excellent points And wow to Hairspray before washing gets whiteboard pen off polos & shirts. Never knew that

YY to Asda for uniform. Lasts extraordinarily well. The peter pan collar polos for girls don't need ironing and look nice all year as there are no corners to get grotty.

Double label - tag + collar or hem. Sharpie is easiest; tipex pen with a metal nib works for dark colours.

Coat, gloves, hat, zips and buttons, shoes, lunchboxes, shoes - practice in advance.

If she wants to choose baked potatoes 5 days a week for school lunch, let her.

You don't have to join the PTA but do volunteer when requested - it's your child and her facilities that they're raising money for.

Read the goddamn emails and newsletters, keep a calendar and don't be that parent who never knows what's happening when.

We have a stamptasic.

Makes labelling everything so much quicker.

Stand back and watch whatsapp group.. you will soon figure out personalities.

Oh we use Stikins for labelling, they are fab

Definitely don’t bother with sewn in labels!

We use MyNametags for name labels, there's still labels going strong on uniform passed down to DC2 from DC1!

Lots of polos - if they get whiteboard marker on the front, it doesn't come out, but they'll still be good to wear under pinafore dresses.

Get 5 of everything so you don't have to do a wash in the week.

Don’t feel compelled to do pta or volunteering, it’s not mandatory and it’s best left to the competitive mums they love all that I do sooooo much

My DS starts reception this year too so I'm following with interest. I do actually have a suggestion though. Find out ASAP what the setting in arrangements are. I found out earlier this week that DS will be doing half days for the first 2 weeks. If you're working you might have to take leave or find childcare to cover the drop off / pick ups in the middle of the day.