starting school

School can be a strange and scary place for beginners. They usually have to cope with bigger buildings, lots more children and fewer adults for support.

It is a time when they start to compare themselves with others.

There are likely to be many new things they are expected to do. The playtime breaks, especially, can be very frightening for beginners.

School days can be very tiring, too, for children who are used to a rest during the day.

Children may have been looking forward to school a lot and feel very let down if they don’t enjoy it as much as they had hoped. Even for those who do enjoy it, starting school is stressful.

Around 60,000 children start kindergarten in Government schools each year. Many schools provide activities to assist children in making a smooth transition into kindergarten.

They work together with families to help young children get ready to start school.

A Transition to School program is a set of planned activities that make starting school as successful as possible for children, families and teachers. 

When children start school they move from a play-based environment to a more formal learning environment.  

There are many more people and relationships for children to navigate and the physical surroundings are often quite different.