Professional transition resources
Below are a range of useful resources and links to websites where you can find helpful information in addition to the leaflet Ready For School? A Professionals Guide.
Resources are provided to allow you to support parents and children as they leave your childcare setting or as you prepare to receive them at your school.
Luton ideas for effective transitions
Transition Booklet with ideas for parent and child voice
Useful Website Links:
Teach Early years – Transition to Reception
Five to Thrive training
Free one day Five to Thrive training is available for all professionals working with under fives in Luton. This provides staff with a good understanding of attachment and brain development and provides useful insight into how they can incorporate the five simple messages into their everyday work with parents. Central to the five to thrive approach is the set of five key activities: Respond · Cuddle · Relax · Play · Talk
These are our ‘building blocks for a healthy brain’. They are drawn from research into the key processes of attachment and attunement that forge bonds between young children and their carers. Crucially, they are designed to support positive feedback processes, enabling practitioners to observe and reinforce positive interaction between parents and their children. To book staff onto Five to Thrive please click here
The Flying Start Gold Award for Transition
If transition is to be successful, from early childcare providers to school, preparations should begin early so that there is good communication between the two organisations. The Flying Start Gold Award for Transition focuses on best practice guidelines for childcare settings and schools. The aim is to effectively support a family to prepare for the child’s new chapter in their education and for the child to make the journey into their new environment as seamlessly as possible.
How it works
If you wish your early education setting or school to be included as part of the Flying Start Gold Award for Transition, please download the relevant evidence criteria below and use this as your guide to completion of the award. If you require any additional information, then please email Christine Rogers: christine.rogers@eyalliance.org.uk or Susan Thomas: susan.thomas@luton.gov.uk
When you have completed the portfolio and are ready to submit your evidence you will need to send the collated folder of information to Christine Rogers (please ask for best address at the time) – marked Flying Start Gold Award for Transition with your setting/school name on the front. Please also include the name of the professional who is leading on this award and their contact details. This will enable us to notify you when the award has been achieved or to ask for additional information if you have not quite reached the expected levels of evidence.
Upon completion and being awarded the Flying Start Gold Award for Transition you will receive a certificate for your School or Early Education Setting and the Award Logo which you can then display on your website. Certificates will be awarded at the termly Designated Safeguarding Officer meetings. If the decision reached by the Evidence Evaluation Group is that substantial additional evidence is required, then you may be asked to resubmit the following term.
Checklist of what to include in evidence portfolio:
- Flying Start Gold Award for Transition for Early Education Settings
- Flying Start Gold Award for Transition for Schools
The following settings have already achieved the Gold Award:
- Cheynes Infant School
- Dallow Stars Nursery
- Little Owls Nursery
- Training Depot Nursery
- St Matthew’s Primary School
- Gill Blowers Nursery
- The Ferrars Academy
