FIRST DAY - 2:00PM DISMISSAL

Preparing Your Child for School

Encourage self-help skills, including dressing and undressing themselves, going to the toilet including confidence when using a urinal for boys, washing their hands, opening their food containers, opening and closing their drink bottle and asking for help.

Involve your child in looking after their belongings.

Develop your child’s understanding of social rules. This will help them adjust to new rules they will need to remember and follow at school. Encourage your child to persevere at an activity for a period of time.

The First Day of School

Make sure your child knows who will take them and pick them up from school. At the end of the day focus on positives: “What are the two best things that happened at school today?”

Settling In

Try to arrive as close as you can to starting time. The teachers will meet you and your child and help your child settle at an activity. There will be a wide range of activities set out to engage your child’s interest. These may include building blocks, books, Lego, playdough and colouring sheets. The teacher will have prepared a name tag for your child to wear for the first few weeks. This will help your child identify friends from their class in the yard.

Saying Goodbye

After the children have settled in, it is time for parents to leave. Some children are quite happy to say goodbye, while for others it can be a difficult moment. It is quite normal to have a few tears and some reluctance for the first few days until children feel comfortable in their new environment.

Before you leave it is important to say goodbye to let your child know you are going and that you will come back to pick them up. If your child is upset, experience has shown that saying goodbye is best done quickly and your child will settle quickly once you have gone. Please do not come back to the room to check on your child.

Home Time

It is important to collect your child promptly when school finishes. This helps to give them a feeling of security. Please wait outside the door of your child’s classroom and do not peer into the windows. We appreciate your patience on dismissal in the first few weeks.

First Day (2:00pm Dismissal)

Children will need:

Snack
School Bag (named)
Library Bag (named)
Big Red (named)
Drink Bottle (named) with water
Art Smock (named on the front, in large writing)
A clean change of clothes (accidents can happen, especially in the first year of school). It is useful to keep them in a plastic bag with spare underwear and socks in your child’s bag.
We will provide a MEPS Prep hat for your child. This will be handed to each student on their first day at school.

Starting Times

To help Prep students settle into school, we begin the year with a shorter classroom program. The first week of school, Prep students attend school:

Thursday 29th January (9:00am – 2:00pm)
Friday 30th January (9:00am – 2:00pm)

From (dates to be confirmed) students attend four days a week (until 3:30pm) and do not come to school on Wednesdays. This means that, although they have four full days each week, they only have two days in a row before they have the opportunity to have a rest. From Tuesday 10th March, (Monday is Labour Day) students attend school full time.

At the start of the year, each Prep student will complete a 1 hour Phonics/Numeracy assessment administered by their teacher. Wednesdays are set aside for assessment.

This time will provide an opportunity to become familiar with each student, and help plan and cater for individual learning needs in our classrooms. Only the child attends these sessions, parents will not be required to stay. Please book one session using the following link.

*School interview code will be available in Term 4.