Parents often ask whether their child knows enough letters and numbers to start school. In our experience, teachers worry about something else entirely.
What the first year asks of a child
- Managing a bag, a lunchbox, a drink bottle and a hat, mostly unaided
- Going to the toilet independently, including the buttons and the handwashing
- Sitting on the floor in a group without needing to lie down
- Hearing an instruction given to twenty children and realising it includes them
- Opening things: containers, zips, packets
- Asking an adult for help
- Coping with a day that is much longer and much louder than kinder
Almost none of that is academic, and all of it can be practised at home in the year before. Ordinary moments do the job better than drills.
Practising without making it a project
Let them carry their own bag from the car. Buy the lunchbox early and let them open it at home for months first. Practise the toilet at the shops. Give instructions from another room. Let them order their own babyccino and carry it to the table. The point isn’t perfection by February. It’s that on the first day, none of it is brand new.
If something isn’t clicking
Some children need more than practice, and it’s better to know that before the school year starts than in term two. If you’re worried about anything on the list, get in touch. School readiness is core territory for children’s occupational therapy, and if it’s the kinder raising the question, our school and kinder consultation works with the setting directly.