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10 Things to ask when Looking at Daycare Nurseries

on Nov 20, 2020

10 Things to Ask when Looking at Daycare Nurseries Finding a good daycare nursery makes for a much smoother return to work for parents. While painstakingly visiting nurseries may not be top of everyone’s maternity/paternity bucket list, doing your homework to find a gem where your child will flourish is priceless. You wouldn’t want that first luxurious uninterrupted coffee break to be marred by worries that your little one is not in good hands. So what are the key questions to ask when visiting a daycare nursery? What is the staff to child ratio? While there are strict guidelines in place on that topic (for under 2s, it’s one carer for three children; for two- to three-year olds, one for three), some nurseries have even better ratios, especially in the older age groups. The child-to-teacher ratio has an enormous impact on language and social development in the early years so it...

What to expect of the 4+ assessments?

on Nov 15, 2020

Competitive independent schools in London are so oversubscribed these days (up to 10 applications for every place) that the vast majority have now moved to assessment for entry at 3+ or 4+. Although such early assessments are far from conclusive and mostly assess the “teachability” of a child at that particular age, the shift, inevitably, is causing considerable angst among parents; especially those with their mind irrevocably set on a particular school. Thus, many autumn open days are spent trying to suss out exactly what will be expected of the children in the assessment. Purpose of the assessment For clarity, let’s first review the purpose of these assessments. What the schools are trying to determine is not whether your child might win the next physics Nobel Prize. Instead, they are looking for signs that your little one is ready to learn in the environment of that school and to...

How to Foster a Love of Reading at Home

on Oct 10, 2020

We all know that confident readers make stronger learners in the early years. Later on, reading is one of the best ways for a child to expand their general knowledge and improve their creative writing. But how exactly do you encourage a love of reading in children? It all starts at home. Here are seven tips to get you started. Do not confine story time to just before bed. Often this is actually the worst moment to launch into a book as your patience wears thin post dinner and bath routine. Not every working (in-and-out-of-the-home) parent has the energy for a lengthy bedtime story and that’s perfectly fine. Instead, try to find a special time during the day or the week when you actually enjoy it. In our household, weekend mornings work best: our children are invited to snuggle under the blanket as soon as they rise and I don’t mind going through a long pile of books if that means...

Five tips to sail into Reception

on Sep 15, 2020

Fretting about what to do this summer to ensure little Rosie sets off confidently in the autumn? It’s not what you may think. Leave the workbooks and phonics flashcards to gather dust while you focus instead on the essential social and physical skills a child must conquer to make the most of Reception Foster independence Your little one should be able to dress without help, a skill best practiced over the summer when mornings are –shall we say- more leisurely. Lay clothes out in the evening and let your child get on with it without intervening at the first hurdle. Practice zips and buttons too unless you want the first tonsillitis to knock them out before half term. Teach importance of expressing emotional and physical needs Whether your child needs the toilet in the middle of a lesson or feels lonely at playtime, he/she should be able to say so. But remember the classroom is a...

4+ assessments and multilingual children

on Jan 3, 2020

Many bilingual and trilingual families get increasingly nervous as the 4+ assessments approach. The prospect of their multilingual child being grilled in English by a native speaker — and the richness of their budding vocabulary being evaluated on the basis of their answer to questions such as what is the colour of your mom’s hair*–is undoubtedly daunting. For many such families the approach of the 4+ marks a shift in priorities. They start to doubt themselves. During the first years of the child’s life, they have often devoted a significant amount of time and energy to embedding their mother tongue(s) in the child. Perhaps they have hired a nanny who speaks the “minority” language(s), opted for a bilingual nursery, spent the bulk of their holiday “back home” or invested in a large collection of books and DVDs in the language(s). In these committed early years, many parents...