Starting school is an important milestone in a family and child's life and the transition period to formal schooling is an opportunity for families, community, early childhood settings and schools to work together.
A successful transition to school is marked by a child’s positive approach to schooling and sense of belonging and engagement.
For schools, transition planning should be responsive to children and families and consider other contexts that may influence the transition, including the local community, existing services and supports and social and economic influences.
Educationally, children’s transition to school is supported when there is real and purposeful alignment between the way learning is presented in kindergarten and the early years of school. This supports children to feel at ease in the new environment and to see themselves as successful learners.
A range of supports are available to help
strengthen transition practices and provide the tools to have meaningful conversations with partners when implementing high-quality transition-to-school programs and improving outcomes for children.
The
supporting successful transitions: school decision-making tool is designed to assist schools in strengthening their approach to transition and their selection of transition-to-school strategies. The tool provides a framework for school reflection on current transition practices.
Transition statements
Transition statements contain valuable information about a child's learning and development at kindergarten as well as suggestions for supporting their continued learning at school.
Kindergarten teachers develop the transition statement in November with input from parents/carers and children.
When shared with the child's new school, transition statements assist in planning for continuity of learning and wellbeing and be responsive to the strengths, interests and needs of children.
For more information about transition statements, visit the
Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority website.
More information
Moving to school
Read about how families, educators and teachers can play an important role in supporting a positive transition to school.
Wondering about school
Learn about connecting Prep and kindergarten children, their families and schools through the 'Wondering about school' resources.
Activities and resources: transition to school
Learn about activities and resources available to early education and care services, schools and families to assist children to positively transition to school.
Step up into Education
Learn about this initiative to support state schools evaluate and modify their existing transition and early years practice to suit the needs of their local communities.
The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – online transition resource package
The online resource package has been developed to assist early intervention service providers (e.g. AQ and AEIOU) parents, teachers (kindy and prep) by providing information and resources to support children with autism into Queensland schools.
Early Childhood Development Programs (ECDP) (PDF, 3.4MB)
ECDPs provide support for children with disability from birth to 5 years. They support early learning development as children transition to school.
Orientation to school – Professor Bob Perry Transcript
Watch the video of a leading Australian transitions researcher discussing orientation to school.