Nervous about starting school in September? Worried how you’ll cope with a new routine and different faces? Scared about the demands and expectations that will be placed upon you? Then chances are, you’re probably a parent, not a child. Whilst a child’s first day at school is a huge milestone for parents, for most children it’s as big a deal as their parents choose to make it. We run around buying uniform, attending information evenings, having earnest chats with our children’s prospective teachers about why our child in particular is a special case and on the day itself we take photographs,  say anxious goodbyes in the classroom and walk around for the rest of the day feeling like we’ve lost a limb. Worse still, with our modern-day tendency to think, where previous generations would just have done, we torment ourselves by reading studies which helpfully suggest that: summer-born children will be adversely affected by starting school ‘early’/those parents who don’t read enough with their children are condemning them to a life of illiteracy/we must have a thorough and detailed knowledge of the merits of synthetic phonics versus ‘look and say’ before our child sets foot over the threshold of the classroom. I’ll save the rant about our modern-day obsession with ‘knowledge’ for another blog. Suffice it to say, that if we were as adept at assessing the quality and validity of the studies we read as we are at scaring the hell out of ourselves with them, then we would all be much happier human beings.

My son started school in a reception class at our local Lower School last September. And no – I’m not claiming that I walked him to school on his first day with some sort of Zen-like calm. Did I have doubts about his ability to cope with this? Yes. Was I worried for him? Yes. Did my stomach feel as if a hundred wriggling, writhing worms had taken up residence? Yes. My son’s only experience of any care outside the family up until his entrance to school was 3 mornings a week at the local pre-school. Until he began school he had never done a full day, never had the experience of eating lunch away from home, and still needed my help to dress himself in the mornings. So I worried about him going hungry, changing for P.E., going to the toilet – all the usual things.

Was my son worried? He certainly didn’t appear to be. I expected tears (to this day, there have been none), refusal to go (the most I have ever got is a jokey ‘I don’t want to go to school today’) and anxiety. What I got was tiredness (to be expected), a little grumpiness for the first half term and overall a boy who seemed happy and settled. True, my son had the advantage of moving up to reception class with nearly all the children he knew from our village pre-school, but in other ways he was probably less prepared than your average 4 year-old, in that he had been largely at home with me since the day he was born.

So what is being in a reception class like? Well, much has been written in the press recently about how in this country we force children to start school too young. This time last year, full of fears for my son, I might even have agreed with this point of view. And whether you agree with this statement or not really depends on how we define formal schooling. In my son’s school, reception class is part of the main school, but in some schools it can take place in a quite separate building. Either way, the curriculum followed is quite separate. If you have been sending your child to a pre-school or to a private nursery prior to them starting  school then the curriculum they follow in reception class is merely a continuation of this. They continue to follow the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) and don’t begin to follow the National Curriculum until they are in Year 1. Granted, they attend all day, every day, but many children in private nurseries already have experience of this and those that don’t – as my son didn’t – tend to adapt fairly quickly.

Through volunteering in my son’s class, I have been able to experience what a reception class day is like and it’s pretty far away from the idea of ‘formal schooling’ that I had this time last year. My son’s class will start the day by finding their name tags – this has now progressed to writing their names – and then sitting down on the mat to register. They answer their names, give their lunch preferences – packed or school dinners, meat or vegetarian. Then there’s time for show and tell, based around their current topic. They then have a short amount of whole class teaching – phonics or numeracy – before breaking off into small groups to work on a play-based learning activity. Last week, the group I was in charge of were playing bingo – cue much shouting and laughter – but in previous weeks we have been drawing numbers on chalk in the playground, filling up beakers with water and sand to learn about ‘capacity’, making shapes out of straws and opening up a ‘play shop’ for the rest of the class. Most of the time, the children aren’t really aware they’re learning: they’re far too busy having fun.

After their group-based activity, the children are allowed ‘choosing time.’ This means exactly what it says: they can play inside – dolls, Lego, listening to music, watching birds from the window – or outside – climbing frame, slide, scuttle-bugs, ball games. They can even go and visit friends in the other reception class if they chose to. This pattern is repeated pretty much throughout the days and weeks. Yes, there are ‘assessments’ of reading and numeracy but the children aren’t aware these are taking place. They laugh, they play, make friends, fall out with friends, learn to share, and, yes, somewhere in all that they may also learn to read and write. To my eyes, it appeared to happen by osmosis, by magic, but I think it’s probably down to the skill of the teachers…

So, what I’m trying to say is don’t worry. Of course you will worry, but trust me – reception year is as far from formal schooling as driving a car is from flying a fighter jet. Oh, and I say this as the mother of a girl who will be starting reception class this September, who was born on August 30th, scraping into the academic year by just 24 hours and who was ‘meant’ to be a September-born baby…

For those who prefer practical action to worry, here are some things you can do:

1) If you haven’t already done so, visit your child’s school. If possible, ask to sit in on a reception class to see what type of expectations will be placed on your child . Most of us will have no memories of what school was like at this age and this should help to reassure you!

2) Try not to pass any worries you have onto your child. Most parents view starting school as such a milestone that we have the potential to create anxieties in our children where there were none. Pretty much, children will respond to situations the way they see us do. So by all means, take pictures, make an occasion of buying school shoes, but don’t spend the summer constantly talking about school in the hopes that this will prepare your child, when all it will probably do is alert them to your anxiety.

3) If your child isn’t transferring to school with children they already know, then it may be worthwhile trying to organise a play-date with a child who will be in their class, so they have at least one familiar face. You will usually meet other parents at some sort of information evening before school breaks up for the summer.

4) Don’t worry if your child can’t write or read before they start: this is what school is for! Some nurseries or pre-schools do focus on these skills, but my son’s didn’t – largely because his school teaches cursive and prefers a ‘clean slate’ to work with! As a result, my son arrived in September, able only to write a ‘w’ for his name. Now, he can write beautifully (joined up – I am a most unexpected convert to the teaching of cursive!) and actually enjoys writing. He can read well and – most importantly – is completely unaware of having been ‘taught’ these skills.

5) You can, however, help your child – and their prospective teachers! – if you ensure that they are prepared in other ways for school. If your child doesn’t already do this, it may be a good idea to spend some time over the summer gradually getting them to dress and undress themselves, to take some responsibility for putting their clothes away and to learn how to wipe their nose (!) and use a shared toilet properly. It’s these self-care skills that will matter more to your child’s teacher than whether they can read or write come September. Children in my son’s class have to have responsibility for their coat and P.E. kit (putting them away, taking them home), their book bag and their water bottle. This will take time, things will get lost and forgotten and muddled up – my son and another boy spent most of the first term accidentally, repeatedly, swapping identical pairs of black, Clarks school shoes back and forth, until one of them had a growth spurt and changed sizes – but if they’re used to taking responsibility at home, then the transition will be much easier.

6) ….and RELAX. We all did it, we survived (and that was in the 70s and 80s, when our parents let us ride with no seatbelts and go out without sunscreen…) Thanks, Mum.  😉