Reception Ready

When families joining Lady Lane Park ask us what they can do to get their 4-year-old ‘ready’ for September, we suggest:

• Fostering independence - managing own needs, changing for PE, packing their bags, and doing up coats and shoes.
• Having conversations - this skill can become easily lost in a busy life where computers and phones are all pervasive, but making the time to learn communication skills, turn taking, eye contact etc. are fundamental life skills.
• Listening skills - sharing stories and focusing on activities for up to 10 minutes will help children take a positive step into the classroom.

A quality Reception experience will build upon firm foundations of early learning and these skills are highly desirable in any classroom as it enables children to focus on other skills and learning.

Here, at Lady Lane Park, when we meet children hoping to join our Reception, we are not expecting a vast knowledge of graphemes, tricky words, or an ability to count to 100. Instead, we hope to meet young people who demonstrate a willingness to engage in conversation and learning, to express their own ideas, display curiosity, and enthusiasm when exploring their environment. A positive attitude and aptitude for learning enable us as teachers to work with children on the principles of ‘how’ we learn.

Reception is marked as the start of formal education in the UK. It is a formative year, and, as a teacher, hugely rewarding, as young minds acquire skills such as reading and writing. This is also a year where children learn ‘how to be’ in school. We are not talking of creating a stylised or formal approach to learning and teaching, but that children begin to understand the role school plays in their own learning and development and how they can flourish in the school environment – which is different from home. Even the youngest children can reflect upon their learning so far and we equip them with the language and comfort of discussing their progress, their learning, and ‘where next’.