We offer a School Readiness Program to help children, and families prepare for school. 

The School Readiness Program is a program available to children 2.5 to 5 years of age. The program operates from September to June.

The School Readiness Program is facilitated by trained and qualified staff. The program offers children:

• cooperative games, crafts and outdoor activities;
• an opportunity to meet new friends in a fun environment; and
• A healthy snack is provided daily.

What is school readiness?

School readiness refers to a child’s readiness to make a smooth and successful transition and integration into the school environment and its routines and expectations. These skill expectations include social, language, play, physical and self-care abilities which, when well established, make learning easy for both the teachers and the children. With a little active planning, parents can really help to nurture school readiness.

Why is school readiness important?

The development of the building block skills for school readiness allows preschool teachers to expand and further develop a child’s skills in the areas of social interaction, play, language, emotional development, physical skills, early literacy and numeracy and fine motor skills. The basic establishment of these skills before entry to school typically affords the child a more successful entry into the school environment.

This can reflect social interaction in making and keeping friends, self-care skills (such as toileting independence and being able to manage their lunchbox independently), emotional regulation to show age-appropriate responses to frustration and to control tantrums, competent physical skills as the play they engage in when interacting with their peers (both independently and alone) as well as language skills for both listening (e.g. to group play instructions) and talking (with their friends).

• Self-regulation: The ability to obtain, maintain and change emotion, behaviour, attention and activity level appropriate for a task or situation.
• Sensory processing: Accurate processing of sensory stimulation in the environment and in one’s own body which affects attention, behaviour and learning.
• Receptive language (understanding): Comprehension of spoken language (vocabulary, instructions, questions, concepts) for group instructions and peer interaction.
• Expressive language (using language): Formulating sentences that have age-appropriate grammar (e.g. using pronouns ‘he/she’ correctly) and word order, using specific vocabulary, and telling a simple story.
• Articulation: The ability to clearly pronounce individual sounds in words and sentences.
• Executive Functioning: Higher order reasoning and thinking skills (e.g. working out how to make the desired building, collecting the materials and overcoming challenges in the process).
• Emotional development/regulation: The ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions and regulate emotions. It also means responding age appropriately to frustration and managing to ‘contain’ tantrums or recovering quickly from an upset.
• Social skills: Determined by the ability to engage in reciprocal interaction with others (either verbally or non-verbal), compromise with others and be able to recognize and follow social norms.
• Planning and sequencing: The sequential multi-step task/activity performance to achieve a well-defined result.