Supporting Our Youngest Learners: Home Visits Ahead of the Move to Reception

This May, our Reception team carried out optional home visits for children currently in the KG year group at The Sunshine Kindergarten (TSK) who will be joining us at BSK in the upcoming academic year. Taking place from 19 to 21 May, the visits gave children the opportunity to meet their Reception teacher for the first time in the place where they feel most at ease: home.

The aim was a straightforward but meaningful one. To build familiarity and reassurance ahead of what can be an exciting, if occasionally daunting, new chapter. A friendly face seen in a comfortable setting can make all the difference when a child walks through the school gates for the first time in September.

Home visits form part of the annual transition programme that BSK and TSK run together each year, designed to help children move into Reception with confidence. In ordinary circumstances, this programme includes visits to the BSK campus and sessions where our Reception teachers meet children in their TSK classrooms. This year, with online learning continuing, home visits offered a considered and practical alternative, ensuring that every child still had the opportunity to connect with their new teacher before the new academic year begins.

Each family also received a welcome pack thoughtfully prepared to help children begin to feel at home at BSK. Alongside photos of their new learning spaces and information about the Reception team, the packs included the My BSK Bear Summer Scrapbook, an interactive activity for children to enjoy over the summer holidays as they look ahead to life in Reception.

The home-school partnership is at the heart of everything we do in our Early Years provision, and these visits are a reflection of that commitment. We want every child who joins us in Reception to feel known, welcomed, and ready, and that work starts now.

We look forward to welcoming our new Reception cohort to BSK in the new academic year.