The First Few Weeks

Starting school for the first time can be a daunting experience for some children, and we work hard to ensure every child has a positive start to their time in our school. We carefully stagger the entry of children into our nursery and have additional staff on hand in order to help the children to settle in happily and ensure they have time to adapt to the new environment and routines in a calm and contented way.

In the first few weeks, we spend time getting to know your child, finding out what they already know, what they can do, and what their next steps are. We also complete some baseline assessments on each child so we can effectively plan ahead for future learning.

We try to give feedback to families as frequently as we can about how their child is settling in and staff will pass on general comments at drop off and collection times, but we do not operate in the same way as a private day nursery, and we are not able to provide detailed daily updates for all children. We will always speak to parents about incidents or accidents that have happened at school or if we have any concerns. More formal meetings about your child’s progress, attainment and next steps in learning will be discussed with you at termly parent meetings and via the report they receive in their last term in nursery.

At Hillcross, we want to ensure all children are happy and confident learners. Starting school for the first time can be a daunting experience, and we want to ensure every child has a positive start to full-time education.  All the children will start school on the same day. However, we phase the length of the school day over the first two weeks in order to help the children to settle in happily and ensure they have time to adapt to the new routines in a calm and contented way. The details of how this transition is set will vary in terms of the dates each year, but it will take place over the first week of the children's starting in Reception. More details will be shared with families at the 'New to Reception Welcome Event'.