Welcome to St William of Perth Catholic Primary. As your child is joining our school family for the first time, we warmly welcome you and look forward to a long and happy association in the years to come. We hope you find this web page useful as you start to prepare your child for transition into school.
We believe our children deserve the very best. Within the school mission statement it says that the aims of the school are “to nourish the growth of all its members as persons illuminated by the light of Christ”. All of our staff work as a team to support learners to reach their potential within a stimulating learning environment and a rich curriculum while the pupils are polite, happy and very enthusiastic. We continually strive for excellence and to give all children the confidence to achieve their true potential.
We always put the children and their learning first at St William of Perth.
At St. William of Perth Catholic Primary School, we believe that we can only truly achieve the best for your child by close co-operation between home and school. We will look forward to welcoming you and your child as part of our school family.
We trust you will fully support our induction programme and information about this will be made available on this webpage.
Mr J. Willis
Miss Dormedy’s Welcome.
I would like to warmly welcome you to our St William of Perth family, and to St John’s Class. What an exciting new adventure you, and your child are about to embark on. We hope you find this page useful to learn lots more about starting school at St William of Perth!
Story time with Miss Dormedy
This includes the areas of learning of maths; personal, social and emotional development; communication and language, physical development; understanding the world and expressive arts and design. Take a look at the new EYFS by clicking here!
Tour of St John’s Class
Click the link below to watch a guided tour of the classroom!
In St John’s Class learning takes place both inside and out, in all weathers. There are so many fantastic learning opportunities for your child to learn outside and develop their understanding of the world and the processes within it.
How can I help prepare my child for school?
Independence
Your child will really benefit from being as independent as possible when they start school. Of course we will always be on hand to help, but children feel a real sense of achievement when they can accomplish things by themselves!
Toileting – please ensure your child can toilet themselves independently, including washing their hands without needing to be reminded!
Dressing – encourage your child to dress themselves independently! Practise putting on your uniform over the summer… don’t worry we will help you with your tie!
Cutlery – it’s great to start practising using a knife and fork and to cut up your own food.
Recognising your name – if your child can recognise their name it will help them to be independent when finding their peg, coat, hat, book bag…
Social Skills
Personal, Social and Emotional Development is one of the prime areas of learning in EYFS. These are the skills we need to develop first, before we can start learning to read and write!
Saying hello to people – Starting school can be very daunting, with lots of new people to meet. Saying a simple hello can make a big difference.
Board games – board games are great for developing a variety of skills; turn taking, sharing, understanding rules, managing feelings, mathematical skills…
Play dates – with restrictions easing, plan for your children to meet up with their friends outside of nursery. Developing friendships outside of a school or nursery setting allows the children to apply the social skills they will be learning.
Communication
Conversations – having conversations about your day is so important! It takes training for children to be able to talk about the events in their day and their feelings. If you can start talking to them about your day, over the dinner table, it will encourage them to do the same. This is great for developing their speaking and listening skills.
If you feel your child may have any difficulties with their communication or language please let us know!
Listening and Attention Skills
Simon Says – playing games such as Simon Says, encourages children to listen and follow instructions. Start off with one instruction and build up the steps gradually. For example, Simon says touch your nose, Simon says touch your nose then jump 10 times…
Go on a sound walk- as you are going on a walk, encourage your child to listen to what they can hear; birds singing, cars roaring, children chatting… this is all early phonics work!
We aim to keep this page updated with information useful for you and your child to prepare for school.
If you have any questions or queries please contact the school office via email on office@stwilliamperth.medway.sch.uk or via telephone on 01634 404267. We have an answerphone if we are unable to take you call, so please leave a message and contact number.