Transition to school is a dynamic process of continuity and change as children move into their first year of school.
The process of transition occurs over time, beginning well before children start school and extending to the point where children and families feel a sense of belonging at school.
Prep teachers, school leaders, kindergarten teachers, other professionals and community organisations work together to support families and children to achieve successful transitions to school. Every school and prior-to-school service needs advocates for transition to school.
Families also have critical roles to play in supporting positive transitions and should be included in discussions about children’s learning and transition to school.
Voices in transitions
It is important that schools know their children and families so they can plan for and support continuity of learning from prior-to-school settings into school.
Children and families
Children and families have information to share that will support successful transition to school. Transition experiences vary for each parent, family and child, and this is evident across the videos below. They feature a parent and children sharing their thoughts, concerns and questions about transition at the end of kindergarten and then at the end of Semester 1 in Prep.
Principals
School leaders have a leadership role to initiate connections with children, families and the community.
The videos on the following link show principals sharing their school strategies to welcome children and families, as well as their actions for transition.
Partners in transition
The videos on the following link show kindergarten teachers, directors, school teachers and parents discussing transition statements and their usefulness as part of sharing information for successful transitions to school.
Achieving successful transitions to school
How do you recognise, know and measure how successful transitions are achieved? What are stakeholders in successful transition seeing, feeling and thinking?
The following diagram can be downloaded and printed on A3 for use as a stimulus for discussion about the indicators for successful transition for your context.
Successful transitions to school will look and feel different for different contexts in response to community and school priorities, but there will be some common indicators of success.
The following resource provides some starting points for teachers and curriculum leaders to consider how they can monitor successful transitions to school for children, families and educators, including those from prior-to-school settings. The resource provides examples of evidence and observable behaviours as starting points to develop indicators of success for your context.
Transition statements
Transition statements provide a snapshot of each child’s knowledge, skills and dispositions for learning across the five learning and development areas in the Queensland kindergarten learning guide (QKLG). They are completed by kindergarten services in November and help schools to understand each child’s learning progress and support successful transition to school. Transition statements are created and shared in the Kindergarten Transition Statement (KTS) application via the QCAA Portal. View these videos to learn more about the transition statement application:
View these videos to learn more about the transition statement application:
- School access to kindergarten transition statements outlines the process for schools to access transition statements in the QCAA Portal.
- Supporting children’s transition to Prep provides kindergarten teacher and parent perspectives on creating transition statements
- Sharing transition statements with schools highlights the experiences of school leaders and parents/carers using transition statements to support transition
- Experiences using the KTS application outlines strategies two school leaders used to manage searching for transition statements in the KTS application.
Further readings
- Last updated:
- 5 August 2021
