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Visits with Papatoetoe Central School
At BestStart East Tamaki, we provide our preschool children who are nearing turning 5 the opportunity to visit the environment and the classrooms of the primary school that they will be attending.
Preschool children, teachers and our parent helpers occasionally take exciting walking trips to our local primary school - Papatoetoe Central School. Children gain the opportunity to observe, explore and experience the environment and the setting of the primary school. Children always look forward to their upcoming school visits with the whole experience of taking a local walk through local streets, arriving at the school and then staying for their visit in the classroom for up to 1 hour. We are also sometimes invited to attend the school assemblies and it is a great experience for our children to see the school performances, awards and current school events being presented.
Inside the classroom visits, children get to experience different activities each time they attend a school visit. Activities they get to explore in the New Entrant/ Year 1 classrooms include cutting and pasting, tracing and writing the alphabet, sensory and fine motor skills activities, group reading and the opportunity to participate in mat times. Mat times that our children are part of involve singing phonics, fitness and partaking in answering questions relating to the class's current learning. All activities involve a purpose in learning and practising of a range of skills.
Our purpose of taking our children to school visits is that it provides children the experience of the classroom environment and activities that they will be coming to later on. It gives our children an insight into the learning experiences and the primary classroom routines. Children get to experience different classrooms of New Entrant and Year 1 on each visit. Moreover, the main concept with our school visits is that our preschool children will be able to adjust well and have a smooth transition to the primary school when they turn 5.
When we visit the classrooms, we are very delighted to see our preschool children who have just turned 5 and have started in the rooms doing extremely well. It is awesome to see that they are happily settled and learning well in their new classroom environment.We are also very delighted to have received wonderful feedback from the primary school about our preschool children settling in amazingly well, following the classroom routines and that they have great skills in early numeracy and literacy areas. We are very proud of all of our children!