First days at primary school

Like children up and down the country, our daughter started primary school last week. So far she has loved the experience and is bubbling with excitement each morning to get dressed and get going. She knew all of the other children in her class from pre-school and play-dates, and had been regularly visiting the school as part of pre-school activities, so the transition was as smooth as it could be.

Letting go of Mummy

We are now well in to the second week and I'm taking some time to reflect on where we are and what we still need to work on. Although she appears to love school, my daughter is reluctant to go in to the classroom without me, and sometimes clings on to my clothes to try and take me in with her. I've tried rationalising with her, bribing her, threatening her, comforting her and walking away from her. Although some of these strategies have enabled her to get in to school for that day's education, none offers a happy or lasting solution. 

At the moment my plan is to take her inside the classroom every morning to help her unpack her bag and hang it on the peg. After doing that the children are expected to go back into the playground until the bell rings. At this point they need to leave their mummies and go in for their lessons. My deal with her is that I'll go inside with her for the unpacking and then when the bell rings she needs to go in without me. This morning she made it near the door and then waited for the teacher to gently push her in.

I've been lucky enough that my husband is around during the day so I've asked him to take some time from work to look after our 2 younger ones this week to enable me to focus some attention on our daughter. Hopefully after some focus this week then from next week I can be a bit tougher about letting her go in with her friends but without me.

Dealing with homework

The other issue is that she now brings home daily homework. There are books to read and discuss as well as words to practice. For the first couple of days she was very keen to do this as soon as she arrived home, but now we have settled into a pattern of reading the stories before bed. Our daughter is very happy about this as she is getting much better one-to-one time with Mummy. Once her two younger brothers are in bed, she snuggles up with me to read her story of the day and practice reading the words she has been given. I have been making an effort to set aside this time rather than try and rush her to bed and get on with all of my own tasks. 

Hopefully the initial enthusiasm from parents and child won't diminish too much! Let me know your trials and victories with the new school term. Thanks for reading :-)