Is My Child Ready for School?
20 honest questions about the year before school — covering the social and practical skills teachers actually raise, not just letters and numbers. You get a per-area result, no score, and nothing to sign up for.
Can they separate from you without lasting distress?
Nothing is saved or sent anywhere. 20 questions, about two minutes.
The Five Areas It Covers
Ordered the way schools tend to weigh them — which is close to the reverse of how parents usually do.
Social & Emotional
This is the area teachers raise first and parents worry about last. A child who can separate from you, wait a turn and recover from a disappointment will settle into a classroom far faster than one who arrives already reading.
Independence & Self-Care
Schools ask about this more than parents expect. A child who cannot manage the toilet or their coat spends their day waiting for an adult instead of learning.
Language & Listening
Almost everything in a classroom arrives as a spoken instruction to a group. Following it without being singled out is the skill that matters, more than vocabulary size.
Early Literacy
The useful markers here are much earlier than reading. A child who knows letters make sounds and enjoys being read to has the foundation; decoding words comes later and the range is very wide.
Numbers & Thinking
Number sense — understanding quantity — predicts later maths far better than early arithmetic does. A child who can count four objects accurately understands more than one who recites to fifty.
School Readiness — FAQs
What is school readiness?+
School readiness is the mix of social, emotional, practical and early academic skills that let a child settle into a classroom and learn there. It is much broader than letters and numbers — separating from a parent, following a group instruction, managing the toilet and coping with not getting their way all matter at least as much, and are what teachers most often raise.
What age is this readiness check for?+
It is written for the year before school starts, so usually a four- or five-year-old. At three, a lot of "not yet" answers are completely expected and the result will not tell you much.
Is this a test my child can pass or fail?+
No, and it is deliberately built so it cannot be read that way. There is no overall score and no comparison with other children — just a per-area sense of where to put your attention this year. Children reach these skills on very different timelines.
Do I have to give my email to see the result?+
No. The result appears as soon as you finish the questions. There is an optional printable checklist afterwards that does ask for an email, but the readiness result itself is free and ungated.
My child was "not yet" on several things — should I worry?+
Usually not. Being not-yet on several items at four is ordinary, and the year before school is exactly when these skills develop. The two things genuinely worth raising early with a teacher or health visitor are speech that people outside the family cannot understand, and separation distress that does not ease — both are common and both respond well to early support.
What should I actually work on first?+
If any area came back as "worth some attention", start with independence and self-care — it is the fastest to shift and the one that most changes a child's day at school. Social and emotional skills come next. Letters and numbers are the ones parents worry about most and the ones that matter least at this stage.
Working on the literacy and numbers side? See the honest guide to learning apps at four, browse the lesson library, or read about school admission test preparation.