Despite a focus on successful transitions to school, transition to School Aged Care (SAC) has largely been overlooked. This paper shares insights into transition programs provided for children commencing in SAC, at or close to their transition to school. Educators working in SAC programs in Victoria, Australia, participated in an online survey…

While a great deal of research has focused on children's experiences as they start school, less attention has been directed to their experiences--and those of their families and educators--as they start school age care. This paper draws from a recent research project investigating practices that promote positive transitions to school and school…

Policymakers, researchers and educators around the world have acknowledged the importance of children's transition to school, both as a significant life event and as a factor in future engagement with education. As a result, much attention has been directed towards researching transition experiences, developing policies to support positive…

Supported Playgroups in Schools (SPinS) are a new initiative in the Australian early childhood education landscape. SPinS are playgroups hosted by a playgroup coordinator co-located on a local school site. Research has identified positive benefits of playgroup participation for children and families. However, little is known about the potential…

Informal learning contexts may provide opportunities for adding capital to young children in their years prior to schooling. This paper explores the potential of the early-years swim context to add capital to young children that may position them favourably for the transition to school. Using Bourdieu's notion of capital, the paper discusses the…

Despite the increasing attendance of children with food allergy in schools in Australia and globally, little is known about how affected families manage their children's transition to school. This paper discusses the experiences and support needs of ten mothers during their child's transition to school in Sydney, Australia, drawn from the thematic…

The face of early childhood education continues to change. In Australia, the national early childhood guidelines, "Early Years Learning Framework" (2009) and the "National Quality Framework" have articulated and defined the work of early years' educators in a range of areas, including literacy. Both frameworks state that their…

This paper details and compares the discernible trends observed in a wide-ranging review of the recent starting school literature in Australia and beyond. More than half of the research reviewed considers children's readiness for school. This research is critiqued through a three-way view of readiness: child readiness, school readiness and support…

At a time when Australia's international competitiveness is compromised by a shortage of skilled workers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related careers, reports suggest a decline in Australian secondary school students' performances in international tests of mathematics. This study focuses on the mathematics performance…

The transition of young children with autism from early intervention to school needs to be carefully managed in order to maintain intervention gains, protect against the risk of child-and-family anxiety, and enable a successful start to formal education. While many North American studies have mapped high-intensity practices for transitioning…

Concern that too many Australian children, particularly Indigenous children, are not ready to start school has spurred a series of changes to the pre-school sector. Included among these changes are nationwide mass surveying and the introduction of a unified curriculum framework together with moves towards standardised entry assessment. Focusing on…

Much of the current debate about children's transition to school focuses on children's readiness for school. Indeed, Boethel (2004, p. 17) describes transition as the "focal point of readiness." Typically, this focus extends to considering children's competencies--particularly their skills and abilities--at the time of starting school.…

This paper details the early childhood transition activities of three schools in southern Queensland, Australia, as reported by school administrators. The transition programs were analysed using the categories of the Transition to School Matrix of the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education. Activities fell into the first four categories…

At the state and local level, many school systems, districts and early childhood networks have developed approaches and programs to support children's transition to school. These programs often address school readiness. There are many definitions of school readiness. Some refer to the skills and attributes of individual children, defining it as…

This article draws on an Australian project engaging with families with complex support needs as their children start school. The project itself is focused on developing collaborative research relationships between families, community support agencies and researchers with the aim of investigating what happens for families during the transition to…