A different year, a different summer and a huge continuing engagement throughout the “holidays” have been visible from all in Scottish education as plans have developed for the safe return to school this week. A new shared language of learning between professionals and with families has developed: notwithstanding the many anxieties, most people have pulled together to make this work as best they can.
Since lockdown, many have been advocating for sensitive approaches to children who will have missed months of nursery or school by the time they return. Transitions have been carefully thought through and there is a plan for every anticipated worry - but is there a plan to seize these transitions, in this most challenging of years, and use them as tools for change?
Having worked in all sectors of education at some point in a happily varied career, my research topic of choice became educational transitions: my longitudinal study followed 150 children through education from 3 years old until leaving school at 16-18. Tracking wellbeing and attainment throughout those years gave the opportunity to look closely at four factors that emerged strongly: children’s agency and voice; parental engagement in their children’s education, teacher collaboration between phases of education; and competent systems, through which the first three elements could flourish.
Long read: Aline-Wendy Dunlop on why we need to talk about school transitions
Quick read: Managing transition to secondary in the Covid-19 crisis
A teacher’s view: ‘I’d be lying if I said I felt entirely safe in school’
The return to school: ‘4 simple things to help pupils readjust to school’
Transition during coronavirus: 5 ways to help pupils make the transition to secondary
What this means for practice is important: applied educational research learns from practice and feeds back into it. If children have agency and voice, they can show what they are capable of, sharing their interests and engaging confidently with others even in new situations. When parents are positioned to contribute to the children’s learning journey, this forms a bridge for children, as does educator collaboration across curriculum and settings. Each goes some way to ensuring children’s wellbeing.
Coronavirus: Supporting pupils with school transition
Today in Scotland, Scottish government figures show that over half of our primary schools have nursery classes in their buildings or are co-located; early learning centres (ELC) in these terms do not form a standalone sector. It is in small children’s best interests to have positive continuity between ELC and starting school. What an opportunity physical proximity gives nurseries and primaries together to enact the Curriculum for Excellence Early Level, as our new Realising the Ambition guidance advocates.
Children’s trajectories through life are launched very early and remain very stable after the first two years of school. Beginning school is a distinctive life-course transition (Alexander, Entwisle & Olsen, 2014), and the years either side of any major transition contribute to longer-term outcomes (Dunlop, 2020). Translated into practice there is, for example, Play is the Way in Falkirk, while the Northern Alliance has developed a visionary transition approach running from early childhood to secondary school leavers.
There are three particularly important points to bear in mind:
- Take advantage of the many sharing and learning opportunities that have emerged since children last met their teachers before the coronavirus lockdown.
- Other countries illustrate how children who start school a little older do just as well and have higher wellbeing and self-esteem than children who start school, as ours do, at a very young age.
- Early formal learning does not equal school success: children must be offered a healthy balance of negotiated, child-initiated and adult-planned learning opportunities and rich playful learning experiences as they join their new classes - as is their right.
We need strong bridging between sectors of education, we need to close the gaps that exist and avoid leaps of faith - or risk children falling through the cracks identified in our international pedagogies of transition research.
Aline-Wendy Dunlop is an emeritus professor of education at the University of Strathclyde and vice-president of Early Education
References:
- Alexander, K, Entwisle, D, and Olson, L (2014). The long shadow: Family background, disadvantaged urban youth, and the transition to adulthood. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
- Dunlop, A-W. (2020). Navigating Educational Journeys - Scottish Educational Transitions over Time. Longitudinal Study Report, University of Strathclyde (forthcoming).
