Moving from Scotland to England - Reception class

[KKKKaty]

Our situation is this. We currently live in Scotland, but plan to move to England in a year or two, jobs depending. DS2 has a summer birthday, and as such he will start school in Scotland next year when he is five and a bit, but if we lived in England now, he would start this year, at four and a bit.

Potentially therefore, we could find ourselves in the situation where he has to start school in Year 1, having missed Reception entirely. My plan is to teach him at home what he would learn in Reception, to try and minimise any "damage". He is already showing lots of interest and knows some letters, numbers etc., so I'm sure he'll be ready to learn.

However, I can't seem to find a detailed curriculum for Reception Year. Does anyone know where I could find one? Also, if your child is in Reception, what "level" of reading, writing, numbers etc are they at now? Lastly, has anyone found themselves in a similar situation - how was your experience? How did your child cope?

Many thanks for reading.

I think this is what you're after. It's a bit wishy washy though.

The main thing IMHO would be phonics (eg Biff Chip and Kipper) to have a solid grasp on at least the first phase or two; and to have a solid understanding of numbers up to ten, including number bonds (ie 1+9, 2+8 etc all make ten).

Does he go to preschool? Preschool and reception here in England is all part of the EYFS so they should be teaching similar things.

Most of reception was playbased for my daughter and was about acclimitising to school routines, playing nicely with others etc - i suspect that a Scottish final year of pre-school/nursery woudl be similar? Beggining phonics and an idea of number (ie 1-10)

However, at the end of recption some children will have been identified at progressing well at phonics/maths and so my daughter was reading quite well by the end of reception. I dont think that was the norm though. Formal learning for my daughter started in year 1.

Just my experience, I'm not a reception teacher!

Thank you Mrs Hathaway. I've bought the Jolly Phonics teacher and pupil workbooks, so we will be working through those. That document looks more helpful than anything I've found so far.

Teacup. He is in nursery, but in Scotland they don't do any formal literacy work until school. There's a clear line between nursery being informal and "fun/play", and "work" starts day 1 of Primary 1. So he won't be taught letters or phonics. But of course the socialisation aspects will be covered.

I'd heard that Reception in England was more play-based, so I don't want to go overboard the other way either and try and get him to learn things he's not ready for if he doesn't "need" to know them.

It is so broad in terms of the level of ability, some are still struggling to read dog and others are reading chapter books. A good grasp of phonics and being able to count, some basic adding and subtracting and maybe knowing some number bonds (numbers which add up to 10 - 2+8, 3+7, 5+5 etc) should put him in a fairly strong position. The ability to make enormous junk model displays out of cereal boxes, yoghurt tubs and an old Easter egg carton, plus timing it so that it is on the day the car is in the garage and there is a thunderstorm, seems to be the main skill that ds is working on at the moment so probably not too different!

We were in exactly the same position last year and my advice would be to enjoy the extra time you have at home with him rather than worry about trying to pre-empt things when you move.
My daughter is also a summer birthday and started P1 just after she turned 5 and we moved that January to England with her going into term 2 of Y1. She had been learning look and say words rather than phonics in Scotland, when she arrived most of the class could write simple sentences, she couldn't. But I put the emphasis on her making friends, having plenty of play dates and letting her find her footing socially. It was much more important to me that she was happy.
Now a year later she is doing brilliantly! An amazing little reader, strong at maths and a lovely group of friends.

The school and the teaching has been brilliant.

If you've got the teacher and pupil work books for JP you should be fine. How far you need to go depends on which set you have. If it's these then the first one is all you really need to cover the reception curriculum. Books 2 and 3 are designed to be used in reception, but because it predates the current curriculum actually covers year 1 work.

If you only do the first book you will need to do more writing when you get to the end. I would say as a minimum he needs to write a sentence with a capital letter and full stop, but probably more. Although longer pieces might not have all the full stops they should.

In the EYFS children are assessed against the development matters framework. This breakdown each aspect of characteristics of effective learning and allows you to assess your child against it. The aim is for all children to reach the early learning goal (highlighted in bold) at the end of each section.
www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf
For personal social and emotional development a child will be placed in an age bracket when they can consistently do most of the statements. It is possible for a child to be 30-50 months in PSED but reach the early learning goal in Physical development.