Question 1

What does school readiness actually mean?

Accepted Answer

Far less about academic skill than parents expect. The things that predict a good start are **self-regulation, independence and language** — not reading, writing or counting.

**What schools actually look for**, and what reception teachers consistently report mattering most:

**Managing the toilet independently**, including wiping and washing hands. This is the single most cited concern and has measurably worsened.

**Dressing and undressing** — coats, shoes, and changing for PE.

**Eating independently**, using cutlery and opening lunch packaging.

**Separating from a parent** without prolonged distress.

**Following a simple instruction** and sitting for a short activity.

**Communicating a need** — saying they feel unwell, need the toilet, or want help.

**Sharing, turn-taking and coping with not getting their way**, which is the largest social adjustment.

**Why language matters most of all.** Vocabulary and the ability to understand and use spoken language predict later attainment more strongly than any early academic skill, because everything else is delivered through it. **Talking with a child — not at them — is the highest-return preparation there is**, alongside being read to.

**What is not required.** Children are not expected to arrive reading, writing their name neatly, or knowing phonics. Formal instruction is the school's job, and starting ages vary internationally by years without long-term disadvantage to the later starters — several countries begin formal schooling at six or seven with excellent outcomes.

**What helps in the weeks before:**

**Practise the logistics** — the uniform, the shoes, the lunchbox, the route.

**Shift bedtimes gradually**, since tiredness causes most early problems.

**Visit the setting** and use the correct names for things.

**Keep your own anxiety off the child**, who reads it accurately.

**Expect regression.** Tiredness, tears, clinginess, accidents and appalling behaviour at home after immaculate behaviour at school are all normal in the first term. **The exhaustion is real**, and most children settle within weeks.

**Summer-born children** are on average younger in their year, and the difference frequently evens out by the end of primary school.

Question 2

When should a child start talking, and what if they're late?

Accepted Answer

The range of normal is wide, which is why general reassurance and genuine concern are both frequently misplaced. Specific milestones are more useful than averages. Rough expectations: Around 12

Question 3

Why is early years education mostly play?

Accepted Answer

Because for young children play is how learning happens, not a break from it — and the evidence on formal instruction starting too early is less flattering than most parents assume. What play does

Question 4

How do you raise a concern with your child's school?

Accepted Answer

Through the right person in the right order, calmly and in writing where it matters — because schools have a defined process, and going outside it early almost always slows things down. The order

Question 5

What is school refusal, and how is it different from truancy?

Accepted Answer

Anxiety-driven inability to attend, as distinct from choosing not to attend — and the distinction matters because the two need almost opposite responses, while the attendance register records them

Question 6

Do bilingual children start talking later?

Accepted Answer

No — this is one of the most persistent myths in early childhood, and the evidence contradicts it consistently. Bilingual children reach the same speech milestones at the same ages as monolingual

Question 7

Why does my child behave worse for me than for everyone else?

Accepted Answer

This is one of the most common and most demoralising things parents notice, and the explanation is genuinely reassuring: it usually means you are the person your child feels safest with. The

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