Children succeed when parents, schools, and communities work together to create a smooth transition into kindergarten. That’s the role of a transition team.
What Teams Do
Transition Teams have three major goals:
1) Identify potential incoming kindergarteners in the community.
Teams coordinate outreach to schools, child service providers, and other community organizations in order to identify children who are eligible for kindergarten in the coming year. These teams then look further for children who might not be reached by these services, working with organizations such as housing authorities to reach out to individual families in a community.
2) Register children for kindergarten.
The first goal is to register every eligible kindergartener as early as possible. Once the children are formally registered in the school system, schools can begin to estimate class sizes and assign students to teachers. Transition teams help children and families register well ahead of the first day of class, giving the schools time to prepare for all the incoming kindergarteners and giving the children and their parents time to meet with their teachers and participate in other transition activities.
3) Plan a series of activities bringing children, parents, and teachers together.
Transition teams plan intentional activities designed to build crucial relationships between parents, teachers, and children. Intentionally involving the kindergarten teacher in transition activities helps to welcome and build family comfort with the school and allows both sides to share expectations and concerns about the upcoming year.
For example, a child might draw a picture of what the first day of kindergarten would look like. This drawing might start a conversation between the child, her parent, and her teacher about her expectations for the first day. This kind of conversation helps the child feel more comfortable about the first day of class. It can also give the teacher a better understanding of the child and what needs she might have.
In the early stages, teams meet frequently in order to review the principles of Quality Transition, discuss relevant research, and develop a strong transition plan. After these initial stages, teams often meet on a quarterly basis to build and maintain school-based plans.
Who is on a Team
Typically, transition teams include some or all of the following: teachers, early childhood education professionals, principals, community agencies, and parents. Who is on the team will be best determined by the needs of the children in your community. For example, if some of the children entering kindergarten are transitioning from home or unknown child-care centers, it will be even more important to include parents and community members who can connect outreach efforts and tailor event strategies to the families of these children. In order to reach a larger group of children, Ready Freddy teams partner early childhood and school professionals with parents, informal child-care centers, and any community-based agencies that interact with children in the area (including family support organizations and literacy groups).
The team leader can vary with each transition team, based on the availability of team members. In some cases, teams in the early stages are led by community members before changing to school-based leaders. For more information about forming Transition Teams see the sample content from our Facilitator’s Guide in the right column of this page.
In the early stages, teams meet frequently in order to review the principles of Quality Transition, discuss relevant research, and develop a strong transition plan. After these initial stages, teams often meet on a quarterly basis to build and maintain school-based plans.
Why Teams Work
Research shows that a transition team, like the one described above, is an effective way to engage more children and families in transition. Both parents and children should feel comfortable with their assigned kindergarten teacher before the first day of class. Although a single visit with the teacher is helpful, parents, children, and teachers can start to build a relationship through a series of interactions.
Although building a transition team that represents every aspect of education and childcare in a community is important for a successful transition, the quality of collaboration between team members (and the quality of the plan that they produce) is equally important. For more information about the research behind our transition team guidelines, see the Resources in the right column of this page.
Developing a Team
Transition teams can consider the following recommendations as they plan a quality transition to kindergarten:
Make a Clear, Detailed Plan
A detailed plan takes time to develop. Make sure that your team meets well in advance of the coming school year, and make sure that the team’s transition plan clearly indicates who is responsible for each step and when each step is to be completed. Get specific and follow through!
Individualize Transition Plans
The most effective transition teams individualize their plan to fit the communities they serve. Although some general policies can be useful in any kindergarten transition, needs and connections between schools and families vary in each community. For example, some schools have difficulty finding and enrolling children, while others enroll children on-time but have low rates of kindergarten attendance. Transition teams use data to help these schools to build a smoother transition experience for all children and their parents. An active partnership with parents in the community is the first step toward making a transition plan that fits.
Plan Activities that Interest Children
When you are planning interactions between teachers, parents, and children, think about what kind of activity a child would enjoy. For one activity, we partnered with a local amusement park to host a carnival event in the community. The carnival games provided fun for the children and an easy way for parents and teachers to get to know each other as they assisted the children. Big events are fun, but activities do not need to be grand or complicated: kindergarten and early childhood teachers and parents on the team know many quick and easy ways to engage young children.
Get the Word Out
Once a plan is completed, outreach and marketing are critical components of making the plan a success. For enrollment, teams can help make sure that enrollment guidelines and policies are clear, consistent, and easily accessible for parents and anyone who might pass information along to parents. For outreach and recruitment to transition activities, consider the places in which a parent might see this information, such as a child-care facility, community center, neighborhood store windows, parks and bus stops.
Parents in the community often know of great ways to engage their peers. For example, a parent on one team knew there was only one pizza shop that delivered to the community. Flyers for a transition event were distributed on pizza boxes to every home. Another parent suggested having a hair braiding event to help all the community’s children look great on their first day of school.