Transition to school programme (tamariki 3 years and over)

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Transition to school programme (tamariki…

Readiness for school can be determined in many ways, from awareness of letters and numerals, to being resilient, independent or knowing the steps to take to find answers to questions.

At Natures Point Childcare, our programme focuses on a balance of preparing your child with a solid foundation not only academically, but also emotionally/socially and physically. Our Rūma Kahikatea (Tamariki over 3 years) will introduce programme inclusions such as lunch box days, which familiarize your child with some of the routines they will experience at school.

Integrated within our everyday programme and children’s “Natures Point Individual Learning Plans”, we support the development of literacy, numeracy, scientific enquiry, and development of essential concepts and skills.
We aim to support the children to make their transition to school as smooth as possible – preparing children both socially, emotionally, and educationally for the next steps in their journey.

During this programme the teachers will provide more complex challenging and stimulating group learning experiences to further develop and extend their skills in a fun and interactive ways. We focus on improving skills in the following essential learning areas in preparation for school:

Communication, Language and Literacy:

children gain an increasing ability to soak up knowledge, to convey and receive information, instructions, and ideas effectively and confidently by listening, speaking, and using visual language in a range of contexts. Our programme introduces the children to writing letters and numbers using the hugely successful and fun Casey Caterpillar pro¬gramme and Jolly Phonics.

Mathematics and Numeracy:

children are able to develop competence in more complex mathematical concepts and enjoy using them in a variety of ways – exploring mathematical concepts encourages creativity, perseverance, and self confidence.

Information and Listening:

children develop more complex abilities to question, locate, and process information and to see people, books, and other media as resources. Children develop more complex reflective and creative thinking as they contribute ideas and try them out with others.

Self-management and Competitive:

as children explore, they show initiative, commitment, perseverance, courage, and enterprise and they adapt to new situations. Children also develop constructive ways of dealing with challenge, competition, and success and failure, developing some skills of self appraisal and self-advocacy.

Social and Co-operative:

children take some responsibility as members of a group in a common task, developing good relationships with others and demonstrating respect for the rights of others. Work and Study: children develop confidence to manage some tasks independently and are able to pay attention in spite of distractions.

Midline Activities:

Bilateral coordination is the ability to use both sides of the body at the same time and is a vital skill for our daily life. Midline activities help develop Bilateral co-ordination to help with skills as reading (tracking across a page), writing (developing a dominant hand), cutting, putting on shoes and socks and improving gross motor skills such as ball handling etc. Crossing the midline promotes the coordination and communication of the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Being Able

Alongside this, we encourage independence and self-help skills, and it is helpful to establish some morning and afternoon routines with your child that support this. This may include putting their own shoes and jacket on, being able to re-apply their own sunblock, finding their own bag hook and name tag and carrying their bag in and out. All expectations that most of our local primary schools have for new entrants.