Starting school, homework, friendships, what to expect

[sunshinedaises]

Inspired by another thread I thought I'd start one for parents who have a child starting school for the first time. My ds in 5 in October and starting school in a few weeks so I'm a mix of nerves and excitement.

Should I be expecting homework in reception? A more cranky tired child? More tantrums? Beginning of great friendships I hope! And mum friends?

I'm not sure what to expect in way of extra curriculum clubs especially as my ds has never been interested in doing anything although we have tried. I do hope he gets involved in some.

At our school, after school clubs aren't offered to reception age kids until the summer term, as its generally considered they will be too tired for it (obviously schools are different).

You might find that he will make friends with a kid who does football/karate/dance/beavers etc etc outside of school, and because his pal does it he will be more inclined to give it a go to be with his friend.

Expect to go to a birthday party every weekend for rest of year.

Homework from what I remember from reception was very limited, practicing writing out letters/numbers etc.

Mum friends - sounds obviously but you'll end being friendly with the parents of who your kids are most friendly with.

I wouldn't expect any homework, other than reading books, and they may not actually start sending them home until a few weeks have passed.

A lot of schools don't offer any extra curricular clubs for reception children.

It's impossible to say if he will be tired or not. Some children struggle, but lots will come out of school full of energy. If there's a park close by it might be a good idea to spend a bit of time there after school. He can play while you get a chance to meet other parents / carers.

Other things for you, and any other parent / carer to consider.

Will he be eating school dinners or packed lunch? If it's a packed lunch you can practice before he starts to make sure he can open the packets and his lunchbox.

Do you need wrap around care? (before and after school clubs) These aren't always offered to children in Reception, and may have a waiting list.

Lastly, keep it low key. Don't be tempted to invite all the extended family to wave him into the classroom. Lots of people crowding around the classrooms and hovering in the playground is incredibly overwhelming.

@noidea69 thanks for that info. There's only 15 children in the whole year so I don't think there will be that many parties for us.

@Whinge do people actually do that and make a big thing of lots of people going? It will only be me and his younger brother seeing him off, maybe his Dad. There is a park close by thank you so that's a good idea to connect with other mums

@sunshinedaises Oh absolutely. It happens more often than you would think. I understand it's an important milestone, but it's incredibly overwhelming and really doesn't help the transition process.

My daughter has just finished reception.
We have work sent home but aside from reading it's not expected to be completed and they didn't really chase the reading either.

She got a phonics sheet for each sound which had some examples of it being used and a box to draw a picture. We went with the approach of asking her if she wanted to do it, if she did great of she didn't we left to another day/ week. I think most did eventually get completed even if not the week they were sent home.

She had a reading book sent home and a story book from the school library. The expectation was that you read the book with them 3 times a week and fill in a reading diary. I'd say for the first term we read it 1-2 times a week especially when she was on picture books. Once she started with actual reading we got more engagement from her and we read them 2-3 times a week. Once she was getting two books home at a time we upped it to 2-5 times a week as having a choice of book to read meant she got less fed up of the book and was more engaged with the activity.

We also had a keyring of keywords that don't use phonics decoding, and a list of 6 words to learn. These were added to periodically. Again we gave her the choice some weeks she readily did them other weeks not interested. Finding the right time for day where she would engage helped.

I did my best to keep the reading record book up to date but quite often the entry was " this week we did... " Rather than each time we did something just because of life and time! I'd probably say we only spent 10 minutes on the days we did the various reading exercises.

Each half term there were school wide "homework" projects. These were broadly craft projects with a common theme.

we have a few extra curriculars available for reception kids craft club and forest school spring to mind but all the sporty ones are restricted to the older years. My daughter was doing swimming lessons once a week from September, from the spring term we joined Squirrels the 4-6y scouts group.

Don't expect it to be linear path, until the second half of the spring term we had 2 weeks of crankiness whilst adjusting to fatigue of the school day, followed by 2 weeks of contentment as we found out rhythm followed by 2 weeks of fatigue as we approach the half term break each half term. 2 of the 3 longest half terms of the year for our school are in the autumn term which meant it felt long! After the Feb half term it went to a few days adjustment to begin back in school and a week or so of where she was starting to get tired again.