School Readiness Checklist 

School readiness in children often means they already have the following skills and behaviours: 

• Emotional maturity and independence 
• Cognitive and language skills 
• Fine motor skills 
• Social skills 

Children can develop those skills and behaviours in their homes and at the early learning centres. For this to happen, both the parents and early childhood educators should facilitate appropriate activities that cover physical, mental, emotional and social development. 

Is your child ready for the big school? 

Getting ready is about acquiring the necessary skills and developing the appropriate behaviours to do well in a new environment or situation. 

This is similar to how we adults prepare for our careers or business. Throughout our school years, we’ve been receiving instruction and training on how to do well at work (although learning still continues after graduation and while on the job). Through the years, we acquired skills, got exposed to different environments, gained a variety of experiences and learned the appropriate behaviours (so that we can achieve business goals and better cooperate with other people in the workplace). 

For children, they also have to gain a variety of experiences and explore different environments so that they can get ready for the big school. This way, they can better get along with children and even face challenging social situations. 

Importance of self-reliance and basic skills 

The environment in the big school is unfamiliar and can seem unsafe and frightening to children. Somehow, they’re on their own now where they have to depend heavily on themselves, which is why self-reliance and basic skills are important here. For example, children should be able to prepare and clean up after their own lunch once they’re in the big school. If they can’t still do it, they will find every day a challenge (and they might feel anxious whenever it’s lunchtime or even whenever they’re about to go to school). 

Aside from gaining comfort and safety, children can also better focus on learning if they’re school ready. That’s because they already have the necessary physical, social, emotional and intellectual skills (literacy and numeracy) to keep up and do well at school. They will also find learning as a fun experience because they were ready for it in the first place.