New Juniors Information

Hello to all the parents of my new Juniors.

First and foremost, please if you have not already sent in your child's enrolment information please do so as soon as possible! 

These are strange times, as not only is your child making a huge transition, but they also have to do so under unprecedented circumstances. At this stage in a normal year, we would have met, you and your child would have had a tour of the school, a chat with our principal and time to explore our class.

The first day of school can be very hard. Regularly, your child would have had to deal with going from one adult per five children to one adult to nearly 30 children. Any Infant teacher will tell you that the first term is just getting your child used to this new dynamic and setting the base for learning. So two things I will ask of you in a coming September are to engage with your child’s learning and to take it slow.

Some things to help get your child ready for Juniors

-Nursery rhymes or any words or songs that rhyme. These are so important to train your child’s ear to hear similar sounds in words

-Board games, Jigsaws or any game that keeps score. These are the best way BAR NONE to develop your child’s early maths skills.

-How to tie up their own coat, open their own lunch box and food and give them Velcro shoes. This year more than ever I have to emphasis this. Usually, I would have whoever is around to help if there are 17-18 coats to be done up, that unfortunately cannot happen this year. A good idea is to trial-run new uniforms the day before.

- Teaching them please, thank you, sorry, and how, why and when to use them. This may not be needed but if children know these things from the offset it can help, the class run smoother come September.

What they will be learning in the first term:

-Phonics – This is our focus in English up until Halloween and beyond, your child will get a sound a day from me and they need to practice it every single night. We teach them how to recognise it in school and what sound it makes and games to solidify that learning BUT unless they check in at home and practice it for even 5 minutes, they will struggle to remember it or see it in different contexts. I will have activities to do this at home, but 5 min each day will save your child months and maybe years later on.

-Early Maths – these are the concepts that allow your child to understand amounts, differences, patterns, and many other things that will help them to tackle the bigger mathematical concepts later on like addition, partitioning, problem-solving, and lots more. It is a practical stage of learning and is so much fun.

- Irish – every year I have many parents asking me worried questions about Irish and they are usually along the lines of ‘I was never good at Irish’ or ‘no one at home can speak it’. DO NOT WORRY; our Irish curriculum is built with this in mind. I talk to them in Irish whenever I can with lots of pictures and actions, and our Irish programme is full of games and songs. Lots of you will not believe me but Irish will be one of your child’s favourite things in school. This is largely due to each generation who found Irish hard making sure that they make each new programme more engaging and fun.

- Writing – we will be working a lot on correct pencil grip and correct letter formation in the first term. Writing is part hand-eye coordination and part muscle memory so it is very important to work on fine motor skills and prevent bad habits forming which would be difficult to correct. A lot of the work at the start will be just following lines and COLOURING. Colouring is super super important at this stage for: hand strength, correcting grip, colour identification, organisation skills, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, focus I could go on!

Oral language and comprehension – this is one of the first things to be assessed in Junior Infants as it is a building block to understanding everything else. This is mainly your child’s ability to express themselves and to understand others.

The above along with developing the new social skills that come with being in the new environment with new rules are the main things I will be focusing on in term one and usually it is all done through structured play activities.

Covid 19

I do not know exactly what the new junior infant class will look like, and probably will not know until September. However, what we do know is that it will not be the same and will make things harder especially for new Juniors. Junior Infants is 90% play-based learning for the first term, this means Aistear, games, PE, Nature walks and drama. Also due to their age, this time usually also means a lot of hand-holding when going from place to place, a lot of teacher intervention and a lot of new rules to learn. Big changes will be happening and I do not know what it will be like but I can tell you now that with each new guideline I will be working to make sure that the class is a fun, safe and welcoming a place for your child as possible.

If you would like to get in touch with any concerns, ideas or questions please get in touch eimear@holytrinitynsfethard.com

Below is a link to a really helpful article about what you can do to make going back to school to run more smoothly. 

https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/1e8a3-lets-get-ready/?referrer=http://www.gov.ie/letsgetready/ 

I will also be adding resources here over the next few weeks so check in when you can