Family readiness

Involvement of parents and carers is key to ensure families are ready to support a child before and as they enter school.  OFSTED’s ‘Are You Ready?’ report highlighted that the settings who most successfully encouraged school readiness were those that involved parents in the process.

There are many ways in which families and educational settings can support a child in being ready for school, including:

• Creating and maintaining an effective relationship with parents during transition. This makes sure the parent or carer understands the process. It also gives the parent or carer an understanding of their child’s development. It gives the parents or carers the information they need to work with their child at home to prepare them for starting school.
• Share with parents their child’s progress to make sure they understand what stage their child is at and where they need to be so they can be involved in the school readiness process.
• A family’s ability to be ready to support their child to be school ready can be affected by many factors, such as socioeconomic divide and poverty. Staff need to be aware of different family backgrounds, religion and circumstances to fully support them in ensuring their child is ready for school. 

Last updated 26 April 2022