Everything a primary school teacher wants you to know if your child started school in September 

Seeing your baby – ahem, sorry, big girl/boy – potter into school for the first time wearing a rucksack the size of a cruise liner can bring about a mixture of emotions. As the squeaky, fresh-out-the-box shoes creak their way across the playground, parents watch on with a combination of great pride and swelling anxiety.

My four-year-old daughter started at our village school earlier this month with both mummy and daddy choking back tears at the gate. Like every healthy couple, we stifled our emotions by discussing the most mundane issues we could think of to distract us from the reality: our little girl was all grown up and feeling much more confident than her 36-year-old parents, who were sniffling into their sleeves by the privet hedge. Our girl was so happy to be there, she didn’t even look back. Her OTT tie-dye unicorn Hype backpack resembled a jet pack as she danced alone across the playground to the classroom door (school rules: your child must leave you at the gate and walk independently to their classroom. Gulp).  

But her joy at starting school wasn’t enough to quell the creeping parental anxiety within me, and I wasn’t alone. That week, my NCT group WhatsApp chat persistently pinged: cute first day front door pictures were soon eclipsed by a string of questions pitched to the group for hive-mind responses. Did anyone’s child tell them what they did that day? Do we all have an app? What about friends – did anyone make any, or are we to believe our beloved babies were festering all alone at the painting station? (sob sob) Do they drink water? What about lunch? And did anyone label the socks – is that too far?

I quickly recognised – among a whirlwind of questions – that sending your child to school is as big of a deal for the parents as it is for the child. “She will always be your baby,” Mr (Bobby) Seagull consoles me, as I tell him about dropping Amber at school that day. “But we need to give children the chance to grow.”

Truly wise words from the teacher-come-influencer who has spent over a decade in education. I’ve been introduced to Mr Seagull – a primary school teacher from east London – under the guise of interviewing him for this feature, but after a few minutes of talking, I suspect it’s going to be a fateful meeting of two minds that actually might spare us both some sleepless nights. So what does a primary school teacher really want a new school parent to know? I’m handing the whiteboard pen over to Mr Seagull, and taking notes for my husband.  

All children eventually find their friendship tribe… As teachers, we’ve been trained to help kids, and that means helping them find their people, too, if required. I like to think of it as we teachers plant seeds and watch them grow into little saplings. We want them to all grow together.

Teachers will look out for kids if they are being left behind; sometimes I’ll see a child on their own and task another child with befriending them – the child I speak to loves the sense of responsibility I’ve bestowed upon them, and the other feels seen and heard, and maybe both get a new friend out of it. It’s a win-win.

Primary school teachers have got a really beautiful sense of pastoral awareness; I’ll always make sure everyone has friends around them in the playground.

It’s normal for them to tell you they’ve done “nothing” that day… As adults, we see the bigger picture, but children live from moment to moment. They concentrate on the next 10 minutes, and then the next 15 minutes. Their viewpoint in life is in short bursts. So don’t panic if they say they’ve done nothing that day: try asking a smaller question instead, like, “Hey, was today a good day – thumbs up – or an OK day – thumbs so-so?”, and see if that opens up wider conversation.  

Lost property is par for the course… If there are 10 school commandments, two of those would be: ‘Thou shalt lose property’ and ‘Someone else will wear thine lost jumper’.

Schools are a magical place, and things get lost really easily. Get a little label-maker or scribble their name on everything with a permanent marker (yes, even their socks, if you want them back). Unfortunately, until they get to about age 9, 10, 11 (even in some cases when they’re 13-14), they lose stuff. It’s an unwritten rule: it will always happen.

They will form a bond with their teacher… Even if it doesn’t seem like it now. And then they will be devastated at the end of the year when they get a new teacher.

Sometimes at the start of the year some kids can a bit distant, especially in reception, but by the end of the year I can almost guarantee they will have formed a relationship and an understanding between teacher and pupil; whatever the teacher does, their class will be like little mini mes and follow.  

Fall-outs will happen… It’s how you handle it at home that can change the outcome. As teachers we will immediately clock a change in situation: if we see two children who previously got on suddenly not playing together or talking, we’ll ask what’s going on and try to manage it inside school. Your job as parents is to listen to them. There’s a lovely little phrase I’ve heard: does your child want to be hugged, heard or helped? Hugged, because sometimes they just had a bad day and just want to be comforted. Sometimes they want to be heard and your job is to let them rant, and you just listen. And other times they want to be helped – they might go through needing a hug and to be heard beforehand – but it’s about asking ‘OK, what can we do about that?’ at the end of it all and helping them with the practical steps.

Don’t worry about milestones – there’s plenty of time for that… I’ve taught children from the age of five all the way to 18. There is so much pressure at the end of secondary, with GCSEs and A Levels, to meet ‘key requirements’, to apply for university… the list goes on. These kids will feel the milestone pressure later in life; there’s no need for that in primary school as well. Obviously, we need to make sure that they learn how to hold a pencil, start being able to read and write, and have the confidence to understand numbers. But what I always think primary should be about is making sure that they learn to love learning….

Primary school should be about enjoying knowledge sharing… I try to make sure my kids learn to love learning. I believe if you’ve done that as a primary school teacher, you’ve set them up for a great school journey.

Learning should be a joy for us all; if I bring joy to learning in their school day, I can see the kids absorb the information and carry the passion forward. If I see them get that from their schooling, then I know I’ve done my job.

Learn to trust your child… Part of the school process is, as parents, slowly building up trust in your children. You need to let them take those baby steps to give them the confidence to stand on their own two feet. We need to give our children the chance to grow.

We don’t bite… Come and have a conversation with us. Parent-teacher communication is everything. We’re very good at our job, but we’re not mind readers; if you are concerned about anything, please talk to us. 

Images: Getty Images, Courtesy of Bobby Seagull