Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode is My Child School Ready. I want to focus on all of your concerns about whether your child is ready for school or not and to talk about the skills which you may want to focus on. I want to encourage you to focus on because they're often the skills and things that we have not yet considered. So, this episode is for you primarily if you have a child starting school for the very first time. However, it is equally relevant if you've got a child transitioning in any shape or form, whether that's infant to junior, junior to senior, or you've got a child moving from one school to another. You've moved or anything else. Now, a common myth that I think we get caught up in is that we should be preparing our children for the academic side of school. So, we tend to focus our attention, certainly when our children are starting school for the very, very first time, we focus a lot of attention on recognising letters, numbers, possibly maybe even writing their names. And yet, with all of the work that I've done, I've been able to focus on what I do in schools. And when I speak to the teachers, all of the time, what they are telling me around school readiness has got absolute, what they're looking for, what they want and what they believe is the benchmark for a child that is school ready has nothing to do with academics. So, I just want to, for context, I think it's a very useful thing for me just to talk you through a recent, a study which was published that looked at the cohort of children who started school September 2024. So, last year, if you're listening to this in 2025, but this was a study, a survey that looked at school readiness by a charity called Kindred 2. And there are some pretty stark statistics here, but it's a really useful one because knowledge is power. And armed with that, we can then equip our children and we've got plenty of time to be able to do that. So, being ready for school or being school ready really talks about a whole range of developmental competencies, capabilities, milestones that we look at in terms of preschool children. So, these are children who are not yet ready for school. It is their time before school. And so, this study, when it looked at last year's reception children, the report showed that when they asked reception teachers, they found that 33% of all children who started school last September were not school ready. 49% of these teachers believed that the school readiness problem had increased, had got worse since the previous September 2023. Now, the reason why I give that statistic is when we look at that statistic, the 33% of reception teachers, the teachers that are going to be teaching your children, felt that a third of their class were not school ready. And yet, that compares quite starkly to when parents were asked whether they believed their children were school ready, and 90% of parents felt that their child was ready for school. Now, my view is that the discrepancy is often in the skills and the competencies and the developmental milestones that we get caught up in as parents are at a complete mismatch to what our schools are doing. And that's actually deemed school readiness to be. And this is what this whole episode is about, is can we just park what we believe we need to get our children ready for school for, letters, numbers, writing, and really focus on the crucial skills that our reception teachers want, because it's the malleable bit that they can then mould, because it's their responsibility and they want to take the mantle on teaching your children to read and write and recognise letters, but there are some core competencies that are not. But are critical for your children to have from a foundation for them to then build up on that. I do want to share a couple, a few more bits of data that will hopefully set the scenes for what I'm then going to talk about. So, of these last year's school children that started, the teachers reported that 36% of the children struggled to play and share with other children. So, over a third struggled. The third struggled to listen or respond to simple instructions. And a quarter, 25%, were not toilet trained when they started schools. And they found over half of the teachers felt that boys were less school ready than girls. So, 54% of the teachers felt that boys were less school ready compared to teachers that only said 3% were. And the other statistic that I'm just going to put out there, but we are not going to address directly as part of the episode, but I want you to be mindful of how this may be affecting the skills that we are now going to be talking about, is 43% of parents and 54% of teachers stated, this is last year's reception classes, stated that children's screen time, so we're talking about four and five-year-olds, is a major factor in their children not being school ready. So, that's the statistics bit. So, now let's work and talk about the super practical things. So, when I talk about. So, when I talk about a child being school ready, when the reception teachers that I speak to, the year one, year two, year three, but when I speak to teachers, what they are looking for in terms of what in their mind makes a child ready for school, it is these following things. So, is the child able to follow two-step instructions? They may be giving them two, three, one step, but the middle bit is, can they follow a two-step instruction? Can they get. Can they get dressed and undressed? Can they put their shoes on and off? Can they use cutlery to eat their school lunch or whatever they need if your child is not having a school lunch, but they're bringing in a packed lunch? Can they go to the toilet? Can they separate from us without being too overwhelmed? They recognise that there's likely to be a first day of school, that there's going to be a bit of separation, but are they able to, over time, separate from us? Feel less overwhelmed? Are they able to interact appropriately with others at playtime, on the carpet, at a desk? And when we talk about interacting appropriately, we're talking about, can they listen for periods of time? We're not expecting them to listen for hours and hours. Can they take turns? Can they share? Can they manage their impulses? In other words, waiting for others to speak before it's their turn, if they're putting their hands up. Can they recognise that they need to wait rather than speak out of turn, wait until they're asked to comment by their teacher? So these are, when we're talking about some of the skills, these are the skills that we're looking at. So I think the first thing I would sort of ask you to consider is, is that a surprise to you? Just take a moment to reflect on that, and if you are listening to this with a child that is going to be starting school for the very first time, or you have got a child that's who's transitioning at any age and stage, whether they're going from year two to year three, you take all of the skills that we've talked about, and then you just up that level. So if we're talking about, you know, can they interact with others appropriately, is can they regulate those emotions when they get disappointments? Can they follow instructions, as in, can they time manage, if we're talking about a 13-year-old? Can they, you know, manage those instructions on the basis of being given homework and writing it down, and therefore then executing on that? So it's looking at some of these things, the first thing I'd ask you to do is just sit with that for a moment, and ask yourself, is that what I have been focusing in on, or not? So that's the first thing. Now the next bit is, how do we then equip our children with these skills? So I'm going to share with you five ways of going about it, but I want to drill down and get super specific in some areas to help you a little bit. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment, and then I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment, and then I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment. So the first thing I'm going to ask you to do is I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment, and then I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment, and then I'm going to ask you to sit with that for a moment, currently against a number of metrics, which I'm going to share with you shortly. And I want you to be honest, I want you to be objective, and I want you to be specific. We want to take the emotion out of it, we want to take the frustration out of it, but we want to be really honest with ourselves, we want to be objective, and we want to be specific. So when we're looking at these metrics, you might want to, when you're making a decision about where your child is in these core skills. And I'm going to share with you in a moment, it might be helpful to write down objectively how your child currently demonstrates competency in that area and if you feel that they're not showing competency in that area what's the pattern of behavior that they're currently showing in these specific areas so that you know where your starting point is we're trying to remove emotion and frustration but what we want to do is understand what our start point is because obviously that's the beginning of our journey but it's also super helpful because it helps us get really clear when we're looking at tracking progress and we're able to see this was the starting point this was the objective behavior that my child demonstrates and so this is what we're now beginning to see as we might start moving towards our end goal and then we can track progress so the areas that i want you to be honest are around these six areas number one how does your child currently interact with others is this appropriate and independent in other words um they don't need an adult to be supervising it at all times or taking charge of that interaction so when we're talking about how do they interact with others what's your objective what does your child currently do can they take turns can they share can they read social cues and adapt to modify their behavior as a result of that so that's the first one is we're looking at how do they interact with others because we're going back to the you know the school readiness that our teachers are telling us that they want our children to exhibit is about their ability to interact appropriately with others so that's our first one is how do they currently interact with others think objectively is that behavior appropriate when i am not there as part of the interaction are they doing it independently or do they need someone how can i evidence the way that they take turns can i observe that that's happened if they've got siblings that's an easy thing to do because it's happening all of the time if you don't have siblings it's play groups it's when you have your friends over whatever that might be but also i would say actually having said about siblings be aware that you don't just use the taking turns and sharing and the reading the social cues from siblings only because while siblings are great because that's another child that they're having to learn to interact with there is also some a different dynamic that tends to play out with siblings so you'll want evidence across multiple situations that's number one so we're asking ourselves how do they interact with others this is part of our audit number two how do they manage their emotions currently objective and we want to be able to tangibly write down this for example how do they manage disappointment how do they manage frustration nervousness fear are they able to identify their feelings and have a good attempt at naming them and having a bit of a good attempt at self-regulating or are they reliant on someone else coming in to help them again we're not this is not about i don't want you to be thinking as you're going through this audit oh my goodness me mary how my child can't do any of these this is an audit this is our starting point but given that when we're talking about school readiness this is what teachers want and desire as a foundation to build their academics on if our children are starting school unable to interact with others unable to manage their emotions and all the other competencies then the teachers cannot begin to build their learning and their curiosity and their acquisition of knowledge because they're not in that they don't have those foundations in which to really listen and take on information if we think about it from a super super scientific approach you know me i love a bit of science our brain can only focus on a limited amount of things we cannot process all of the things that we are bombarded with it's just it's just something that we cannot do and so what our brain has to do is it has to manage a very finite capacity of attention if our brain can only focus on a limited amount of things we cannot if i am an individual and this is we're talking in this specific example of a child but equally as an adult if i am so consumed with my emotional irregulation so i can't manage my feelings or maybe i'm struggling with how i interact with my peers that is going to take most of the attention and the resources that i that my brain has because i'm i'm constantly checking on other people if i'm feeling anxious or nervous or i'm currently constantly checking in on my body because i'm hypervigilant or i'm constantly in impulse mode or overwhelmed when that happens i'm using all of the resources and so what then happens is i have no my brain has zero capacity to then listen to instructions to then take in the learning the teaching that is actually taking place which is why it's so crucial when we talk about being school ready that we address these things because when we can and it's not about having factory production line children that sit quietly don't say a word don't get overwhelmed by their feelings and the rest of it that's not it but it is about helping them be in a space where they're ready to learn and so that that's why we want to have this one in so the first thing we're auditing is how do they interact with others the second thing we're ordering auditing is how do they manage their emotions and do they have a good go at self-regulating remember that when we're talking about children being ready for school and starting school some of you will be listening to this with a child who has just turned four so we have got children that will be starting school in september some will be five and would have been five quite some time ago and will turn six within months of starting in reception others have only just turned four and when we think about this when we strip it all the way back in the same class and this feels much more intense when they first start school but in the same class you are going to have children who were already birthed babies in the same classroom as children who were we were literally getting the blue line on the pregnancy test whilst the others were already babies that had been birthed so there's a huge variation here so it's not about being able to tick all of these it is simply about where is my child currently in this particular skill and this particular developmental milestone and focusing on our energies on those so we're looking at how they interact with others we're looking at how they manage their emotions number three is how do they negotiate so this is very much about how do they manage situations that are not quite as they would want them to be so the reason why we ask about how do they negotiate is because of the playground because of play times because of interactions are all about negotiation they're subtle negotiations i want to play this game you want to play that game i really want to be involved i'm good at negotiating i've worked out that actually if i just join in and play your game eventually you'll play my game so that's what we mean by negotiation not not arbitraging not having a a long just conversation about something specifically that they're trying to persuade you with but they're able to negotiate various different social scenarios to be able to adapt and modify so again you want to look at objectively where is my child currently on that if i stand back objectively does my child actually never really get an opportunity to negotiate because their sibling always does what they want them to do or they're an only child or my firstborn and and actually we just do whatever they want to do so it's just thinking about that if that is the case and we've not really given them an opportunity to negotiate how can we begin to bring some of these in and if it's a scenario where that's not happening at home but they're going to nursery or preschool can we have a conversation and again an objective audit with where they currently are in preschool how well does my child negotiate do they compromise how does that show what's the evidence in that how do i know that they're doing that so that's number three and now we're going to take a quick pause for a word from our sponsors number four is how do they manage conflict how do they manage situations that don't go their way whether they're trying to persuade another child to play a game that they want to play whether they are dealing with a particular argument whether there's a conflict over a shared resource that they both want to have is that how do they currently manage conflict is the way that they resolve it physical or are they able to try and use their words to express themselves in some way or then does it become something hugely emotional again we're not suggesting i mean obviously we don't want our children getting physical and pushing but it's simply understanding objectively how does my child currently manage conflict and what's the objective measure how do i see that how does that how do i observe that in their behavior so we can then use that to then that's our baseline that's where we currently are number five how do they use their voice to to communicate their needs to adults and other children. So this is a, we want to look at it both ways because when they start school, they're going, we're going to want them obviously to communicate their needs. I want to play with you to other children. I'm finding this difficult. Can you help me with adults? So it's about being able to do that. Is there a disparity? Does your child find it easier to communicate with adults? Does your child find it easier to communicate with children? Does your child communicate with some adults, but not other adults? If it's new people, this is what we're auditing. So is there communication? Is it relatively constructive or do they tend to avoid, withdraw or become dysregulated? So we want to reflect and audit that process of how do they currently communicate is number five. And then number six is how do they manage separation? So how do they manage separation? Do they become overwhelmed and struggle to self-regulate? And that's just an objective measure. Is this happening across all situations? How long does it take them to soothe? Is someone else required as part of the soothing? Do they have specific strategies? So we're really looking at when we're doing this audit, we're looking at these six skills and we're asking ourselves, where does my child sit with all of these? And really, write down something objective in terms of how is that evidence currently? That is your start of your journey. So that's the first bit. So what we then want to do is we then want to look at our desired goal or our behavior. This is our next step. This is A, now we want to look at B. Where is our end journey? And asking ourselves, if you're not clear at what that end goal is, is that what would managing separation, what would that need to look like? If that helps you think of that end point. Yep. So if you're looking at how do they interact with others, what would it look like for my child to be able to take turns, share and read social cues? What are the sorts of behaviors that I would expect them to exhibit? We want to get super specific. We don't want, it's not, this is not a, these are not sort of like high level concepts. These are objective. How could I observe my child and say to myself, I started at A and I now want 100% no in that's in the skill of, you know, how they interact with others. They've reached their destination because I know exactly what I'm looking for. And again, with all of these, we're not looking for a hundred percent. Your child is going to have moments where they don't share or they don't take turns or they pick up on the wrong social cues. The idea here is, is that, is your child able to make a reasonable guesstimate in those scenarios, more obvious? Often than not. And if so, excellent. They are school ready in that area and that skill. We're not expecting them. We talk about four and five-year-olds here. This is developmentally appropriate, but it is being able to be super clear about the objective because there's no, we need to know where our end point is. We need to know how we are going to be able to tell that we've got there. So that's what we're doing with number two. We've got, we've started, we've done our audit. We now know what our ideal is going to be, where we're going to end, and now we want to identify the specific skills gap for each of those six areas that your child is currently not yet at the desired goal. Yep. So we're looking at, we've done the audit of, of where they are. We're now really clear on where we want them to be for all of the areas that your child is not currently at B or close enough to B. We want to be able to tell them that identify those skills gaps, and then we want to rank them in order of which the skills appear to have the biggest gaps. So what we want to do in essence, what we want at the top is where we need to do the most work. And then, and then what we then want to do is then is have the least work at the bottom. And it may well be that out of the six that I've talked about, your child might have already be actually giving a, a pretty good go on half of them. So you, you've got three, but what we want to do is we want to have the one at the top that has the biggest gap, because that's the one that we can make the biggest gain. If you've got a child, who's got three of those six, they're already halfway to being totally ready for school. And so we're going to have the biggest, we'll be able to have the biggest impact on the one that has the biggest gap. So that's what we want to do. We want to work out where the skills gaps are. And then what we want to do is we want to then rank them so that we know what we want to then what we need to start working on. My advice is always the power of one work on one area that has the biggest gap that is likely to have the biggest impact. And quite often, I mean, with a lot of these ones that we've talked about in terms of school readiness, there are some practical ones around being able to get dressed, putting shoes on. Off, go to the toilet. Those are things that we can work on, on a day to day basis, they don't require the same level of input, as it may well be around emotional regulation, as it may well be around cooperation and their interactions with others. When we're dealing with these larger ones that are more the social and emotional side, they take a lot of our time in terms of resources. So those are the ones that we can have the biggest impact because if we can impact how our children interact with others, for example, in terms of taking turns, sharing and reading social cues, whilst that is a skill in itself, there are lots of components within that skill that will also help them in terms of their communication, or and will also help them in terms of negotiation, managing conflict and regulating their own emotions. So it's really where we've got the biggest gap, we have the we also have the biggest opportunity to make an impact. So we're going to then rank them. And then number four is now we can start pulling together a list of tasks to build up those specific skills. And so what we then do, let's take the how do they interact with others, because this is often one of the biggest ones that tends to come out. Because as I say, there's also the emotional regulation that feeds into that within that. So what we then want to look at is we want to, it's about maximising ordinary opportunity, and then adding in extras if we need to. But I think you will find you'll be pleasantly surprised by the number of interactions and opportunities you already have in your child's day to day that you can capitalise on before you start adding extra things. So we want we then want to look at objectively is what scenarios do we currently have, where we can really target and focus on our child taking turns sharing and picking up on social cues. So the first thing we want to do is we want to look at the number of interactions and opportunities that we can do is our interrupt interactions with them. So we can just up the ante, even if it just a basic level, there are certain games that you would play with your child, up the ante in terms of being a little bit less sharing. Yeah, be a little bit more possessive about items to encourage your child to then be able to negotiate to then be able to take turns. If you are currently in the order of play with your child, being the adult as a child, you're going to be able to negotiate with your child. So if you are currently in the order of play with your child, being the one that often concedes in order for your child to have the lion's share of something by just simply being intentional in the, do you know, I want to flex my child's muscles around taking turns and sharing is what can I do that? So if they're playing with a specific toy, can I join in? Please, can I play? Can we take turns? If they struggle with that, then we can then build that muscle. We can do that in terms of if they, I don't know, if they're playing with a specific toy, we give them a biscuit and then it's about sharing that biscuit. So we're looking for everyday opportunities to flex those muscles around those particular skills first before we start adding those extra layers in. And those extra layers may well be around organized opportunities to play in our home, whether that's with our family or whether that's friends. It may well be going to playgrounds so that our children can play in the playgrounds. So if they're playing with our children, get opportunities in person with other children around taking turns, waiting for someone to come down the slide, waiting to go on the swing, waiting and specific on the climbing frame. Any of those things, we can provide those opportunities as the extra layer that we add in whilst always looking to track and objectively measure and really tuning into the environment. So this is the observable behavior that I'm looking for and being able to really look out for it and constantly, you know, number five is about reviewing and reflecting on where is my child in the last couple of days? What opportunities have I seized for my child to be able to practice those specific skills? What can I see objectively that my child has done that is beginning to demonstrate that they're getting closer to that particular skill and acquiring that particular skill. Because this is a continuous sort of, it's an evolution, these things. But when we're talking about the very hard and fast, how do I know that my child is ready to step into a classroom and learn? It really is about these foundations. And really what tends to happen when our children start in reception, and a lot of it will depend on the area that we live in, is that it tends to be a very eased transition. We're looking at a school with classes that could be anything from sort of 25, 26, all the way up to 32. If you're fortunate enough to be in a local village school, you may well have much smaller classes, or you may have reception and year one in the same class, but still small numbers. Is that they are going to have mixed abilities arriving in the same way as they do in any other year. But their whole focus. Their whole focus is on getting all of those foundational skills in place. And so if your child starts school already beginning to manage separation, beginning to be able to communicate their needs to adults and also to other children, to be able to manage conflict, to be able to negotiate, to manage their emotions and attempt to manage them, and able to share, take turns and read the book. Those social cues, when they interact with others, then we really are giving them the best opportunity to maximize that learning. Now, there is another episode that is going to talk about my top 10 tips to reduce school jitters on those first day. That's a whole separate bucket emptying episode. So look out for that episode, because that will talk about practical things to do. On the day and once our children have started. This is all about the preparation and the getting them ready. And hopefully you have found that super, super helpful. I would really love to hear your thoughts on school readiness, whether you're a teacher listening to the podcast or someone in education, whether I've used my voice to echo what you're saying to me. But also for you as parents in terms of your concerns, your anxieties, your worries. The gaps that I may not have yet filled that you still could do with a little bit of extra commentary on do comment on the podcast episodes themselves. If you listen on any podcasting platform, whether that's Apple, Spotify or through the website, there are opportunities for you to comment on the episodes themselves. And we do pick up on that. We've had some comments, but it is something that you can do. And we can then. Respond to that. And it gives us real time feedback as to how relevant the episode has been and whether we've touched on the points that you would really like us to. If you want to write something more comprehensive or personal or you want to email us directly, then please do that directly at contact at Dr. Mary Han dot com. And of course, remember that you can access the free resource library where so much free content is available to you. Which is on the website, Dr. Mary Han dot com forward slash library. All you need to do is you pop in your email address if you have not yet subscribed and you will get instant access to all of the free resources across all of the podcast episodes. And that is also searchable. So as ever, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, I would be so grateful if you could just take a moment to follow, rate and review this podcast so that others can. Find us and we can spread the love. So until next time. Bye.
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