“The quality of a child’s early experience is vital for their future success. It is shaped by many interrelated factors, notably the effects of socio-economic status, the impact of high-quality early education and care, and the influence of ‘good parenting’. What parents and carers do on a daily basis with their children is important. Providers who forge strong partnerships with parents and carers, and work in partnership to develop the home learning environment, help them to improve their child’s progress and make a better start at school. “
– Executive summary of the Ofsted Survey Report 2014
We all know how fundamental nurturing school readiness is. What’s less known is how we can effectively use the different communication channels open to us, such as social media, to help establish best practice and better awareness with parents.
Social media can play a central part in preparing children and families for the transition from nursery to school.
From sharing information and activities, to providing a countdown and nurturing relationships with key schools, social media should encourage and enable school readiness rather than inhibit it.
The following tips should help:
- Ask questions on social media to see how school ready your families are. This isn’t about shaming families – it’s about encouraging them, inspiring them and enabling them to do more.
- Ask previous parents what advice they have for parents whose little ones are going to school for the first time. Encourage parents to support each other.
- Share tips and activities that parents and carers can do with their children to prepare.
- Reassure parents regularly that every child is different and starts school with different abilities.
- Have group/week activities to encourage the children to be talking about these strategies. eg. Uniform Week – encourage the children to practise trying on their uniform, share pictures of the different primary school uniforms, ask parents to share stories etc
Social media is always good for the ‘little and often’ approach – and building school readiness really needs this style of encouragement. Plan it into your schedule, starting around now and leading up until September, with a different shared question, tip or task every week. Don’t forget to let us know how you get on!
Kate Tyler is the founder of Shake Social and our long time social media expert. A regular speaker at events, Kate offers consultancy and training on a range of digital marketing topics, in particular safeguarding and using social media in an educational setting.