In 2012 we were working through transitioning Veronika from ECIS(early childhood intervention services) where she had been attending ‘school/playgroup’ since she was 7 weeks old. Part of that transition was taking part in the pre-kinder program at the school Veronika was going to go to kindergarten at.

I had been talking with Veronika’s teacher at ECIS how I had wanted to do a little ‘about me’ note for each of the students Veronika would be in kinder with. The basics of her diagnosis’ and how that may impact Veronika in the classroom. Its something that I was wanting to do since I had seen one a friend had done a couple of years prior. I thought what a good way to introduce Veronika to her future ‘peers’. Many of Veronika’s classmates were siblings of Jordan and/or Jakob(Veronika’s brothers who were already at the school) so they had known Veronika already, but there were new families attending school.

Veronika’s teacher at ECIS and myself spent a lot of time on the wording, we wanted it to be at the 4 and 5 year old level her classmates were. Not big medical words, but also use the proper medical terms, Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy.

and this is what we came up with….

I had quite a few parents come up and say it was great to have the ‘about me’ note, and that they had read it with their child after the pre-kinder session.

Then following on from that I had a conversation with  Principal. We decided that I should share a little of Veronika’s journey to kinder, at one of the parent information sessions. I knew if I got up to talk in front of everyone I would cry, mostly happy tears as starting school is a huge milestone for every child, but for us when at one point we thought Veronika might not survive, let alone walk into kinder, with her walking frame. So I decided a short video would be best…

Maybe if you have a child that is transitioning to school in 2015 this is something that you may be interested in doing for you child, for their peers.