Be School Ready 2025 launch: welcoming new parents to your school community
Image: A father and primary school-aged son walking hand-in-hand through a park, talking and smiling to each another. The son is wearing school uniform and the father is carrying his son’s rucksack.
Have you ordered our printed Be School Ready guides? You might be eagerly awaiting their arrival to hand them out to new parents. Great news — they will be delivered to school offices all across the UK from next week! We have a lot of guides to deliver, so it may take a few weeks for you to gets yours. If you haven’t got your copies by 19th May, please email [email protected]
If you didn’t order printed guides this year, not to worry. You can still help new parents and their children get ready for the start of school by sharing our free online guide and resources with them.
What is Be School Ready?
Be School Ready is an annual campaign run by Parentkind to help parents and their children prepare for the start of primary and secondary school.
We offer free printed guides to Parentkind PTA members of primary schools, which can be given to new parents at induction or welcome days. The guide (as well as the guide for secondary school starters) is also available on our website, alongside lots of resources via our online Be School Ready hub to help parents navigate this exciting (yet nerve-racking) time in their parenting journey.
Topics covered in the guide for primary school starters include:
- What to buy before the start of school
- Learning milestones
- What to expect during the first few days, weeks and months
- What to do if there are issues at school
- Guidance for children with SEND
- What a PTA does
- And much, much more!
There is also a Be School Ready Facebook group that new primary school parents can join to support one another and ask questions.
What do we do with the printed guides?
The guides are perfect additions to welcome packs for new parents. You can include information about your PTA, the school and your local community, as well as a few small welcome gifts and learning activities for the children. It’s a great introduction to your PTA and you never know, it might inspire a few new volunteers!
We recommend handing the guides out during welcome or induction days at your school. Your PTA could host a teddy bears’ picnic for it — we have a teddy bears’ picnic guide that you can follow to run the best picnic ever! You could also hand them out at other welcome activities such as pre-loved uniform sales or when parents and their children are touring the school. Speak to your school about the best ways to get involved.
What can we offer parents if we haven’t got the printed guides?
We still recommend that you host some sort of welcome event to introduce your PTA to new parents and their little ones. You can create your own pack and include a link to our Be School Ready hub. Plus, you could introduce them to Parentkind’s parent webinars, which are free for all and full of topics that parents tell us they want to learn more about.
As well as sharing information about your PTA, Parentkind and other resources, welcome events are a great way to gather parent email addresses for your PTA newsletter, if you have one. Remember to comply with GDPR best practices.
How do I order guides for next year?
Make sure you don’t miss out on when orders open for our 2026 guides by subscribing to our PTA eBulletin newsletter. We will also share updates and information on our social media accounts, so make sure to give us a follow!
What did PTAs think of Be School Ready last year?
Feedback was overwhelming positive last year, and there was even a waitlist for spares of the printed guides!
Here is just some of the feedback we got from our members:
“A great resource for new parents.”
“We ordered them in previous years and found them useful. They exceeded expectations.”
“They were brilliant, we have recently taken over from an old school PTA who did nothing for new parents, we included them in a new parent pack, and the new parents loved them! So thank you!!”
Thank you!
Thank you to all PTAs who ordered our Be School Ready guides. Together we can help more parents and their children feel prepared for the transition to primary and secondary school.
If you want to tell us about your Be School Ready experience, feel free to email us at [email protected]
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