Families come to us for school-readiness support at two quite different points, and it helps to know which one applies to you.
Before School Starts: Getting Ready for Preschool or Primary
If your child hasn't started school yet, "school readiness" here means the functional foundations that make the transition smoother: sitting tolerance for structured activities, following simple multi-step instructions, basic self-care independence (using the toilet, managing lunch, putting on shoes), fine motor readiness for early writing and cutting tasks, and comfort with a group routine and mild sensory demands like noise, other children, and less individual attention. None of this is about "getting ahead" academically - it's about your child's body and regulation being ready for the structure a classroom asks of them.
Already Enrolled: When the School Sends Feedback Home
The second, equally common situation is a child already in school whose teacher has flagged something - can't sit still through a lesson, doesn't follow instructions the first time, or the third, seems disorganised with books and belongings, struggles with transitions between subjects or activities, or finds group or circle time overwhelming. This kind of feedback can feel alarming when it arrives in a diary note or a parent-teacher meeting, but it's genuinely common, and it's exactly the kind of concrete, observable pattern that occupational therapy is built to work on.
What We Actually Work On
Depending on which of the two situations applies, sessions build sitting tolerance and postural control, work on following and retaining multi-step instructions, build organisational systems your child can actually maintain rather than one imposed once and forgotten, and address transition difficulty between activities with concrete, repeatable strategies rather than vague advice to "just try harder." Where attention and impulsivity are part of the picture, this often overlaps directly with our occupational therapy for ADHD page; where the difficulty is specifically about handwriting and written output, our handwriting and fine motor therapy page covers that in depth.
Working With the School, With Your Consent
When it's genuinely useful, we can liaise directly with your child's teacher or school - sharing practical, classroom-usable strategies, or occasionally observing how your child manages in that setting. This only ever happens with your explicit consent and involvement; we don't contact a school independently or without you knowing exactly what's being shared and why.
What a Session Involves
Sessions typically combine structured activities that build the underlying skill - sitting tolerance, instruction-following, organisation - with practical, classroom-style tasks your child will actually encounter, such as following a two- or three-step instruction, transitioning between activities on a timer, or managing their own materials during a task. For a child already in school, we also ask about the specific situations their teacher has flagged, so the strategies we build map onto real classroom moments rather than generic exercises.
When Attention Difficulties Are Part of the Picture
Sometimes what looks like a pure classroom-participation issue is closely tied to attention and self-regulation more broadly - a child who can't sit still in one setting usually shows some version of that at home too, not only at school. If that overlap sounds familiar, our occupational therapy for ADHD page covers the regulatory side in more depth, and the two pages work well read together if that's the pattern you're seeing in your own child.
How Progress Is Reviewed
We set specific, observable goals early on - for example, sitting through a full lesson without repeated reminders, or independently packing a school bag using a checklist - and review these at regular intervals. Where a school liaison is in place, we also ask for brief, specific teacher feedback, so the plan reflects what's actually changing in the classroom and not only what's visible within a session.
Frequently Asked Questions
My child hasn't started school yet - is it too early for this kind of support?
Not at all. Pre-school readiness work is specifically about building the sitting tolerance, self-care independence and basic classroom-comfort skills before the transition happens, which tends to make the actual start of school considerably smoother.
The school says my child "just needs to focus more." Is that fair?
Often, "needs to focus more" describes a real functional gap - in sitting tolerance, instruction-following, or organisation - rather than a matter of effort or motivation. An OT assessment looks at what's specifically making focus hard for your child, rather than treating it as a character issue.
Will you contact our child's school directly?
Only with your explicit consent, and only in the way and to the extent you're comfortable with. Nothing is shared with a school without you knowing exactly what and why.
How is this different from tutoring or academic support?
Tutoring builds academic content knowledge. This works on the functional, physical and regulatory foundations underneath classroom participation - sitting, attention, organisation, following instructions - which affects how well a child can access teaching and tutoring in the first place.