10 Top Tips for Helping Children to Settle into a New Academic Year
With September just around the corner and the summer nearly over, we thought we would share our top ten tips for helping children to settle into their new class or room this September. Whether you have completed visits to other settings, home visits, all about me books, or settle sessions. Or feel like you haven’t quite done enough yet. There are still practical things that we can do in the first few days to help children to settle quickly into the new year.
1. Make sure that all children have a named peg (or photo on a peg) for their first day to help them feel settled and like they belong.
2. Set-up an activity or guide them to an area of the room based on what you know about their likes and interests. For example, on the get to know you teacher day, Amelia’s mum said she loves to play with babies at home. On her first day make sure that the babies are out in the role-play area for her to play with.
3. For children who have English as an Additional Language make sure that you know keywords in their home language or have pictorial cards to help them communicate. For example, toilet, home, snack, food, drink. To ensure that they are able to communicate their basic needs with you.
4. Spend time in the first few days establishing the routine with your children. Use a visual time table to help the children know what is coming next in the day.
5. Try and ensure the same person if possible greets them in their first week, offering consistency and a familiar face.
6. Take time to agree class or room rules alongside the children, giving them ownership for the space as co-owners. Not an adults space that they are stepping into.
7. Spend time with children 1 on 1 and in small groups to help establish good positive relationships early on. For example, it might be sharing a book together or sitting and drawing together.
8. For children with special educational needs or disabilities, ensure that you have planned and prepared as a team how you are going to meet their needs. If they need additional support with tasks - what will that look like? Who will lead this?
9. Ensure that you have an environment, resources and interactions that promote emotional literacy. For example, emotion resources, opportunities to talk with children about how they might be feeling. Some children may not have the vocabulary yet and might need resources to help them communicate with others there feelings.
10. Get the parents to send in a photo from home of something that the children have done over the summer holiday’s. This can be a great talking point and then can be displayed or made into a book of our summer holiday’s.
What are your top tips for helping children to settle into a new room or class this September? We would love to hear them.
