Your child’s first day at preschool
Starting preschool for the first time is an important new experience for your child. Some children are happy for you to leave on the first day and others need a little more reassurance.
We encourage families to visit 2 or 3 times before starting to familiarise yourself and your child with the set up, routines and teachers.
We encourage you to stay with your child until they feel confident enough to stay on their own. This ranges from 10 mins to 2 weeks.
If settling into preschool is proving difficult, we suggest that you leave your child for short periods at first (1/2 hour to 1 hour) and increase the time span the next visit.
It is important that you leave quickly after saying goodbye as not to prolong the process for your child. The more often children come the quicker they will settle, try not to give into your child that says “I don’t want to go today.”
You are welcome to ring as often as you need to, to check on your child during their time with us.
And be assured if your child does not settle we will ring you!
Healthy foods
Please supply your child with healthy snacks and lunch in a named lunchbox. We are working alongside the school towards a sustainable future so are encouraging rubbish free lunch boxes.
We consider a healthy lunch box to have some of the following:
Sandwiches, Crackers, Fresh fruit, dried fruit, yogurt, sushi, cheese etc and would appreciate you leaving chocolates, lollies and donuts etc at home
Or any other food with the Heart Foundations red tick on it
We have a special area set aside for eating with lockers for storing their lunchboxes.
The whare kai (dining area) is open and supervised between 10.15 and 10.45. All tamariki are encouraged to come and have something to eat throughout that time and we encourage you to follow the recommendation in this document.