Back To School: Your Essential Guide

For many parents, these past few weeks have been the slowest of the entire year. Whilst some mums might be sending their little ones to Kindy for the first time—a moment you might’ve dreaded since they were first born, for others, it means less money spent on childcare, less whinging throughout the day and more peace!

This time of year is completely chaotic- back to school haircuts need to be negotiated, crowds must be battled during stationary shopping and uniforms need lots of labelling to avoid those dreaded lost property dramas. To make life a little easier, use this as your back to school guide: our top tips and things to remember before the new school year gets underway.

A Sticky Situation

Our top pick for back to school labelling! If you’re anything like us, you like to go a little label crazy to avoid dramas of lost (and darn expensive!) school books, kindy clothes, uniforms and other equipment. Stuck on You has a variety of designs and packages available offering personalised products including bags, lunch boxes, water bottles, stationery and clothing, so you can nip those lost property incidents in the bud before they've even started. The best part? All of the clothing washes really well and comes with handy instructions on how to best iron them on, which means there's no excuse not to start limbering up for a big label session—when school is in full swing again you'll be insanely glad you did. Go label crazy this back to school season with Stuck On You! More here.

Bite-Sized Lunchbox Advice

The lunchbox struggle is real. Time-poor mums know all too well about how creativity and nutrition fly out the window a mere few weeks into the school year. Whilst it might be tempting to throw kids a few dollars for the school canteen, you just can't beat a packed lunch from home, especially if it comes in a personalised lunchbox from Stuck On You. Kids will look forward to using their monogrammed lunch bag all day long. If you're looking for lunchbox-relaxed advice, we've compiled a few of our most helpful lunchbox tips here. You might also like our 6 favourite healthy lunchbox tips and tips on making lunchbox time hassle-free.

Stationery

In case you’ve missed it in the news, parents are being asked to provide a lot more in the way of basic school supplies this year; particularly stationery items like pens, pencils, rulers, chalk and more. Luckily, kid-favourite Smiggle has a jaw-dropping range of the above; including scented pencils, gel pen pack, novelty pens and super-fun pencil cases (we’re obsessed with this one with a built-in calculator—reckon we could pull it off in the ellaslist office?). Check out their range here.

School Readiness Programs

School-time is a mixed bag of emotions for the whole family. According to education experts, there are 5 major factors that determine whether your child is ‘school ready’: self-regulation and social-emotional readiness, physical health and motor readiness, language and communication readiness, cognitive readiness, and approaches to learning. If you’re considering, or think your child might need a school readiness program, read our complete guide here.

The Great Kindy Debate

Image: Stanford Graduate School of Education

More and more parents, given the choice, are delaying their child’s entrance into kindergarten with an extra year of preschool. If your little one is born between January and July, the choice is yours. Want to weigh up the pros and cons? You need to have a read of our article!

Australia's Top Schools

Image: Telegraph.co.uk

Is your child leaving primary school soon? Considering their options for high school? The results are in, and these are Sydney’s top high schools. For another year, selective schools seem to be the way to go in terms of academic results. However, there are some surprises in there for you to consider, too! Here are Sydney's top primary schools for those of you who reckon high school is miles away. Here are Melbourne's top schools and Brisbane's top schools too. 

Hero image: My Kent Family

More Back To School Reads Here:

• Back to School: 5 Lunchbox Friendly Sandwich Ideas
• What Age Should Kids Be Starting School?
• Preparing Your Child For Big School

 

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