A way into school each morning

The sheet

A plan agreed with the school and with your child: who meets them, where they can settle, their first task and how they ask for a break. On the second page, four break cards to cut out.

For a meeting · A4, two pages · Two pages · PDF, 66 KB

How it helps

When getting into school has become hard, a plan agreed in advance means your child knows who will meet them, where they can go to settle, what they’ll do first and how to ask for a break, so each morning starts the same way.

How to use it

1. Ask the school for a meeting about how your child gets in each morning, and ask for them to be there for at least part of it. Take the sheet.
2. Fill in the plan together: who meets your child, where they can go to settle, their first task and how they ask for a break. Make one copy for home and one for school.
3. Cut out the break cards, one for them, one for the adult who meets them and two spare, and agree a date to look at the plan again.
4. Each morning, get your child there on time and hand over as agreed, without reopening the plan at the door. If a morning goes badly, start again the next day.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with What to Do When School Is the Problem.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.