The Principles of School Readiness

School Readiness is a term used to describe how ready children are, socially, physically, emotionally and intellectually for formal schooling. The skills that are needed for a child to be ready for school, start from birth. At Jesters we ensure we support this by delivering a curriculum that enables us to focus on those aspects. The term School Readiness comes with a lot of misconceptions, such as the belief that a child needs to count to 100 or to write their name and to even read simple stories. Although, within the EYFS there are statements such as: “to write some of their name and some letters”, to be school ready means so much more.

The most influential skills a child should have before starting school are to be resilient, the ability to problem solve, to be independent, to start methodical and systematic thinking and most importantly, to be able to self-regulate their emotions.

Our assessments of the children here at Jesters are tailored to reflect the way that schools assess, using the language and the expectations attached such as “Working towards”, “Age related expectations” and “Greater depth”. This is used servicewide from babies at our nurseries to pre-schoolers, so by the time children transition to our local feed schools we will have established a true reflection of where children are sitting within the curriculum. Having gained crucial feedback from our local schools, we know that our assessments form and play a big part in our children’s reception baselines.

We aim to enable every child in our care to attend school being educationally prepared, emotionally resilient and articulate, through our fun and targeted curriculum. This preparation will ensure that they enter school ready to absorb and thrive in the next chapter of their educational journey.