School Readiness and the Characteristics of Effective Learning: The Essential Guide for Early Years Practitioners

This guide to understanding school readiness in young children is essential reading for early years practitioners. It explores the concept of school readiness by unpicking what the term means for children and how we can define it in the context of the characteristics of effective learning. This includes ideas for promoting playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically. The book also considers how we can ensure schools are ready to receive children and suggests ways in which preschools and nurseries can work collaboratively with schools and engage parents and carers to ensure a smooth transition.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction. 2. The Starting School Lottery. 3. Characteristics of Effective Learning. 4. Playing and Exploring. 5. Active Learning. 6. Creating and Thinking Critically. 7. Children Who Are Ready. 8. Children Ready Schools. 9. Settings Supporting Children. 10. Engaging Parents and Carers. 11. What Next? Creating Lifelong Learners. Appendices. Glossary.

About the Author :
Tamsin Grimmer is an Early Years lecturer at Bath Spa University and one of the Early Years Directors for Linden Learning. She is based in Wiltshire, UK.

Review :
The aim of this book is to contribute to the debate, while putting children's needs and considerations very much at the forefront, and acknowledging all of the key players - school, setting, policy makers, parents, children, press... But most of all children are central to the discussion because they are the ones who will be starting school and undergoing major changes in their daily routine and in the expectations placed on them. They will need high levels of wellbeing, self-awareness, self-esteem to cope with these changes... This is an excellent book. This book eloquently explores the often misused and rarely understood concept of school readiness by understanding that this involves more than achieving learning goals. By considering preparations for formal teaching methods to be rooted in the Characteristics of Effective Learning, Tamsin brings these concepts to life through personal anecdotes and illustrative case studies in ways immediately familiar to any practitioner. This book provides an invaluable guide to understanding the vexed and contested term of 'school readiness'. By framing it within the 'Characteristics of Effective Learning' it shapes an authentic context for what should underpin definitions of achievement in the EYFS. Its successful balance of practically grounded theory and real life exemplification make it a formidable contribution to the debate. We hear a great deal about the problems teachers encounter when children start in Reception and just haven't mastered the basics they need to benefit from school life, so this is a really important topic. By understanding the situations children find themselves in, Early Years practitioners are better placed to help... The book takes a well-rounded view that extends beyond the Early Learning Goals to look at the child and the situation as a whole, and the practical examples will guide and inform.