Transitions for All into School Erasmus Project

Project Title

Transitions for All into School

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Romas and/or other minorities; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

School starting ages vary across Europe. The experience of transition to school can be very supportive for children and their families, setting them up for future academic and social success. However, it can be a difficult experience for some children, particularly those with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND), those who have already experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences, or those from hard to reach communities such as migrant, refugee and Roma and Sinta groups. Transitions have been identified as an important focus area as a result of the partners’ work on previous Erasmus+ projects, such as ITIDE, PROMISE, and PROLEA. This project aims to synthesise and develop best practice around transitions to school for dissemination across partner countries to support positive outcomes for all groups of children. Whilst acknowledging individual regional contexts and investigating best practice in our partners’ regions, we will find solutions through collaborative transnational knowledge exchange. We will be addressing the horizontal priority of supporting educators, and the school education priorities of tackling disadvantage and increasing access to high quality early child education and care.

Cross-cultural research on transitions to full time compulsory schooling argues that these experiences relate to social competence and academic achievement (Tizard et al., 1988; Ramey & Campbell, 1991). Preschool children with SEND often experience a more challenging transition to school than others (Janus et al., 2008), with success depending on the child’s adaptation to the new environment and on the parents, teachers and school facilitating the child’s learning. Parents play a key role in providing information about their children whilst teacher attitudes and expectations and communication with parents and other members of the transition team are highly important in determining the quality of the transition (Salend, 2008). Hard to reach and vulnerable communities include children who have experienced trauma, looked after children, refugee and migrant children, marginalised groups such as Roma and Sinta, and children who experience intergenerational poverty. For them, transitions are particularly hard as they are less likely to attend early years care settings (Gilley et al., 2015). The family may also lack experience of schooling, or have negative expectations that the home culture and language may not be valued. Schools may make ‘assumptions about levels of cultural familiarity and contextual knowledge’ (Vickers, 2007). For these children and families, transdisciplinary networks to support transition are valuable (Krakouer et al., 2017) as well as a focus on partnerships and professional learning for early years professionals and school teachers.

This project focuses on supporting educators: we will work collaboratively with early years educators and primary school teachers to link education practices with research and innovation through the planned knowledge exchange on transitions practices in the partner countries. These professionals will work with us in developing and evaluating individual learning units: learning and professional development resources for the teaching profession. These will enable professionals to engage more effectively and support learners from disadvantaged and diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The project aims to tackle school disadvantage by strengthening collaboration amongst early years professionals at different stages of the educational system through the workshops and learning units. These training opportunities and best practice guidelines at the regional and transnational level will improve transition into formal compulsory schooling and support relationships between schools, early years settings and families.

The project partners have extensive experience of working with schools and educators to provide training and psychological services for Early Years, SEND and vulnerable populations including refugee and marginalised groups. Each organisation has established access to networks to access participants in these groups regionally. Proposed activities are: knowledge exchange on transitions policies and practices in the partner countries with a literature review, resulting in policy guidelines; training materials disseminated free of charge; workshops to evaluate the materials, leading to an evaluation report; and transnational best practice guidelines. The resources will be embedded within existing structures within the partner organisations to ensure continued impact and life for the materials beyond the end of the project. The expected impact is to improve transition experiences for those groups who find them most difficult, by equipping Early Years practitioners, teachers, and families with knowledge, tools and ideas to promote positive transition experiences.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 349060 Eur

Project Coordinator

LEEDS BECKETT UNIVERSITY & Country: UK

Project Partners

• PROFEXCEL.NET LTD
• SDRUZENIJE NA NA RABOTESHTITE S HORA S UVREZHDANIYA
• Senatsverwaltung für Bildung, Jugend und Familie