Description
Download NDNA Cymru’s factsheet with nursery tips for transitioning to school for early years providers in Wales.
Preparing children for the transition to school is not a one-off task that happens in the last term before they leave your setting.
Exemplary early years practice means you are constantly supporting children’s development and their transition through the different stages of their lives during their time with you in the early years.
There are many crucial skills that support children’s smooth transition into primary school and as a practitioner nurturing these foundational skills, it is important to identify the particular needs of the children in your setting as well as the key skill they will require.
In doing this you can ensure that you support children’s individual needs, enabling each unique child to have as successful a start to their school journey as possible.
These ‘Top 10 Tips for Transition’ will help to guide you whilst supporting early years children through this crucial milestone in their young lives.
Successful early education happens when families and education professionals join together to support children’s development. Learning should be play-based, fun and engaging to capture children’s enthusiasm.
Here we have included some ideas and
activities for sessions that will support children’s transition to school and nurture connection in families.
These ideas can be used in any way you wish to support family engagement in settings. It may be helpful to invite different school professionals to attend the settings too (see letter templates document) as this is a nice, informal way to support parent/teacher meetings initially. Involving children in the process of inviting their family members is a lovely way to engage families in these sessions.
Consider supporting children to design their own
invitations to these sessions, and discuss with children who they would like to invite.
As every family is unique, it may be that grandparents, guardians, older siblings, aunts and uncles, foster carers or family friends attend. Be mindful of this in the language that you use on the invitations, in order to ensure these sessions are inclusive of all children and their important people.
Find out more in this factsheet.
This resource has been developed as part of a ‘Transitions and partnership working toolkit’. The toolkit was produced as part of NDNA Cymru’s FPEN project supporting partnership working and transition in the early years sector with settings, schools and families. This project is funded by the Welsh Government. All resources can be downloaded for free in the shop or here, where you can also watch a short introductory video to the resources within the toolkit.
