Playgroup To Reception Transition!

[Guest]

Hi everyone, hope you are all well!

 

Im an NQT this year and in reception. My head has started to ask me to think about the children I will be teaching next year and the transition process they will receive. In the past playgroup children have come in for reading sessions and circle times, but my head wants to try something new!

 

Just wondered what everyone else did to introduce the children to the school and school life!

All ideas welcome!

 

Thanks in advance

Rachel xx

[Guest Biker]

Hi Rachel

Our pre-school is based in school grounds but in it's own building.

As our children transfer into the nursery we usually organise a few little visits one just to play,one to stay for snack and one where we join the nursery children when they go out to play.

Once or twice the nursery teachers have come to visit us first which is lovely as they get to see the children in a familiar environment but it depends how much time they have.

children also have an initial visit to look around with their parents.

I will be interested in what other people do too as i am sure we could do more!

Biker.

[Guest]

We work very closely with the school we are linked to. Our building is in school grounds too.

Today we had a talk on recycling with reception and then made musical instruments out of scrap. Had a professional in to do the talk.

 

On Thursday we are going over for a read your favourite story session together with Reception in the school hall.

 

We try to get together twice a week for play, music and movement and stories. Just try to include them in any activities we have planned. I will be staring forest school session with the reception class from April.

 

The reception teacher comes over once a week from April to read a story and become a familiar face with all the children and the children start one afternoon a week too with their parents attending if necessary.

 

We are also involved with assemblies once a month. All of our children then start school full time in Sept as the transition has already taken place in the summer term.

[Guest MaryEMac]

We are on a school site and in the summer term we have a session for those starting school in Sept. On most of these sessions the reception teacher opens all her doors and I open all of mine so that it is very relaxed and our children can access the reception class at their own pace. We also invite some year 5 children to come in and spend time with playgroup so that they are familiar faces in the playground in Sept. We also turn the home corner into a canteen and borrow some meal trays from school so that our children can practise carrying them with food and cutlery on them.

The school do invite us for special assemblies throughout the year and only last week they allotted a space for us to go on the life education bus. This was manned by a teacher and the theme was 'I am special' it was excellent and our children got a lot out of it.

Since we have been doing all this, the reception teacher has reported that there are fewer tears at the start of the autumn term.

 

Mary

[Guest tinkerbell]

We have children from 5-7 settings who join our reception.We have a 15 intake.The TA and I visit all the settings and say hello to children and have a quick word with staff who fill us in on any major problems.The parents have an evening in school where we show them around ,introduce booklet etc ..the children come in as a group for an afternoon when the whole school has moved up...year6 transition day.

The new children and parent are invited to summer events eg bike race,summer fayre.

My TA is developing more of a link with the 2 main feeder nurseries and has been for a visit to both,their staff have been invited in but haven't taken us up on it yet...we are trying to get a better transition link going.

[Guest]

Our 3 feeder preschools come for a visit almost every week in the summer term. To start with they visit the current reception children and teacher with their leaders until class lists are sorted then if they can they visit their new classroom and teacher. At these they just muck in with whatever is going on! I go to visit them in their playgroups. I also go for a meeting with the leaders and talk through each individual child. The parents have a meeting with me/head/governors etc etc. New classes come for story time for a couple of weeks with their new teacher and TA and I loose my current class! We also have a swap morning where all children go to their new classes for a whole morning. We do home visits during the first week of the autumn term. Children start part time staying for either morning and lunch or afternoon. They swap for the next week then are full time!

Throughout the year the preschools are invited to different activiites going on at school- e.g plays, sports day, special visitors etc etc

 

Hope that gives you some ideas! xx

[Jo A]

In the last term we have a dressing up box with school uniform in. Worked well last year.

[Guest Wolfie]

I work in a Children's Centre which has a full daycare nursery within it - as a pilot project, we are working in partnership with the two main schools to which our children transfer to put on a set of three informal sessions for parents in the Centre, aimed at giving them information about the transition and addressing any questions, worries or concerns they may have about their child starting school. The sessions will be run by myself, teaching staff from the two schools and other professionals including the local health visitor, family support workers from the Centre and the Parent Support Advisors from the two schools.

 

We want to get away from the traditional "lecture" to prospective parents in the school hall along the lines of "You WILL do this, your child will be expected to do that", etc. and make it much more of a partnership where we find out what parents' real worries about the whole process are. Hopefully, addressing the parents' needs and making them feel happier about the transition will then have an impact on the child's experience. I'll let you know!

Edited March 22, 2008 by Wolfie

[Guest]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum but was very interested in this thread.

I have a pre-school in the grounds of the local primary school. A couple of years ago myself and the school were involved in a pilot partnership project with the local EYDCP. The focus was to encourage pre-schools and schools to make more of each other with regard to transition. Myself and the dep. head (also FS2 teacher) had a number of meetings to decide on how this partnership would progress. To cut a long story short we are now three years after the project and we still have great links. To start with we bought two sets of the same core books that would be shared with home as well as the setting. We put ideas in the back of each book for parents to share with their child. One activity was put in the FS1 book and the same idea in the FS2 book together with another more extended idea in the FS2 book. This means that when FS1 children reach FS2 they will find the familiar idea from pre-school as well as a new idea.

In addition to this the Dep.head and myself hold parent workshops for FS1 parents each term. The workshops usually follow the six areas of learning but it also gives us chance to reiterate the importance of learning through play and to encourage parents NOT to sit children down and get them to write, know numbers and letters by rote. It takes place in the school hall and is a very informal time, we have refreshments and play games like giving the parents a jelly baby and asking them to descibe it. Then giving them just a photo of a jelly baby and then just the word. Its amazing how well this works when we have asked which was the best way of describing it . Obviously this promotes the importance of the children actually having the opportunity to interact with their environment and construct their own knowledge.

In addition to the workshops, the children who are in their last term at pre-schhol pop in with one of us on a daily basis to reception just for a few minutes but it helps make everything familiar. we also have three formal all morning sessions as well. The school are very happy with this arrangement, they say it feels like the children have always been there and very rarely have any problem with settling in the new o ones which is in contrast to those who attend other nurseries or pre-schools.

 

This is a bit long for my first contribution - sorry but I hope it might help. If anyone has any ideas for our workshops I would be very grateful.

 

Regards Neat1

[Guest Wolfie]

Welcome to the forum Neat1!

[Sue R]

Welcome!!

 

Not long, very interesting! Keep it up

 

Sue

[HappyMaz]

Welcome to the Forum, Neat1

 

It sounds as if your transition arrangements work very well for all concerned - lots for us to think about and aspire to!

 

Maz

[Guest]

Welcome from me too Neat1.

 

I love the jelly baby approach to explaining learning through first hand, real experiences. I dont suppose you could share a few more....?

 

I work in a private day nursery and we held a Foundation stage information evening a little while ago for parents because some had asked why we didn't 'get children to write over dotted lines' or do work sheet type learning Anyway our Early Years advisor came in to give an informal talk and as part of her presentation she asked the parents to write their signature on a piece of paper, she then asked them to swop their 'signature' with another parent, parents were then asked to hold their pen in their left hand (or right if they're left handed!) and to 'write over' the signature they were given. It really highlighted what a ridiculous, difficult, uncomfortable, boring task 'going over someone elses dotted lines' really is.

 

Sam