Preparing Your Child For School
Please consider these
points:-
1. Does your child know his/her full name, address and phone number?
2. Can your child put shoes on the correct feet and do up their laces? (You may consider shoes without laces). We have a “Shoes Off” policy in our building.
3. Can your child manage to remove and put on outer items of clothing, and put on his/her art smock? Managing to dress will be important for future swimming programs. Buy clothes that are easy to manage.
4. Can your child recognise his/her own named belongings? (Clothing, lunch box, drink bottle, art smock, library bag).
5. Does your child know how to flush the toilet? Is your boy familiar with using a urinal?
6. Can your child use a handkerchief properly?
7. Be aware that your child will have to:-
- Undo a lunch box
- Unwrap a food packet
- Unscrew a drink container
- Drink with a straw
- Get a drink from a drinking fountain
- Know the difference between play-lunch and lunch.
8. “Play” is an important part of your child’s preparation for schooling. Encourage your child to play with other children - NO WAR GAMES PLEASE. Encourage your child to share and take turns - also to pack away toys when play has finished.
We do not encourage children to bring breakable or valuable toys to school. A favourite toy lost or broken can mean heartbreak.
9. Advise your child of the dangers of stick and stone throwing. Our school rule, PLAY WITH SAFETY AND CARE, includes Do not throw sticks and stones.
10. Provide your child with a rich background of nursery rhymes, stories and songs. Join the local library and watch TV shows such as Playschool. You will need to monitor what and how much TV children watch, as too much TV can:-
- Stop a child from normal play, where imagination and physical skills are developed.
- Lead a child to be a passive learner - one who sits and waits for information rather than actively trying to find things out.
- Cause a child to miss out on language development because conversation is limited.
- Overstimulate through a high noise level and rapid visual patterns.
- Cause a child to be fearful of others and/or to attempt to solve problems through physical violence because this is the model often seen on TV
11. Help your child to accept that you will not always be there by leaving him/her with a friend or relative at times.
12. Perhaps you could visit the school with your child prior to the starting day.
13. Children need to be well enough to enjoy school. Seek medical advice if you are concerned by hearing and/or eye sight. Many children suffer temporary hearing loss at this age. During the Prep year your child will be visited at school by the School Nurse.
14. Ensure that your child has adequate rest. A tired child can not learn efficiently. Many Prep children go to bed at 7.30 p.m., but the need for sleep varies with each individual child. If your child is becoming over-tired in the first weeks at school, do not hesitate to collect him/her at lunch time.
15. Help to develop confidence in completing tasks by giving your child simple duties to perform. Most importantly encourage your child to talk and communicate with you. Set aside time to listen, play and read stories.
16. We recommend that Prep children are collected from school, however it is important that your child knows the safest way to walk to and from school if you live within walking distance. Ensure that he/she understands that the school crossing must be used to cross the main car park and also in Sheffield Road. Also show him/her the “Safety House” signs between your house and Billanook. As your child becomes confident in the school environment you may wish your child to be part of the Walking School Bus program. Watch the Newsletter for information about this exciting venture successfully commenced in 2004.
PLEASE WARN YOUR CHILD NOT TO ACCEPT RIDES FROM STRANGERS.
17. Please advise your child not to leave the school ground without permission. Preps are sometimes confused with dismissal times. Please notify the school immediately if he/she returns home unexpectedly.
18. Occasionally some Preps develop a confidence that prompts them to go home with a friend. If your child brings home a playmate, please don’t accept the assurance that a parent has approved. The parent is probably frantically searching for his/her child. If your child is going home with a playmate, please send a note to advise the teacher of this arrangement.
19. Return of Materials: Parents are the most important people in a child’s life. Occasionally toys, books or other items may be brought home from school for you to see. Share the child’s delight in these; don’t growl, but firmly explain that if other children are to also enjoy these items, they must be returned to school.
20. The Car park: Parents are requested to exercise extreme caution when driving through or parking in the school car parks. Students are required to wait behind the school fence in the gravel car park. Parents must park, and collect their children at the gate. Students will not be released to cross the Car park alone.
In the asphalt car park students are required to wait behind the school fence until they ascertain where their parent is parked. They may then go to their car. Children and parents are asked to use the recommended pedestrian crossing point at the end of the car park if parked on the western side of the car park. No pedestrians should be walking through the asphalt car park.
Please
remember that during First Term, the Prep children will be taken to the gravel
Car park, by the teachers, at dismissal time.
