Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Transitions

Local community collaboratives are a great way to ease children's transition to school, says Rebecca Fisk

The next school year may seem a long way off but start planning now and by September you could have in place a 'local community collaborative' that will ease children's transition to school at what is a young and potentially vulnerable age.

A collaborative is a group of pre-school settings and a primary school that have come together to build strong links and work in new and interesting ways. The idea for developing such a network came when I was appointed EYFS leader at Bishop Henderson C of E Primary School, a two-form entry school in Taunton, Somerset.

During my first year, I soon realised that building close links with all 20-plus feeder pre-schools would be a challenge to manage! So I invited all the pre-schools in a half-mile radius to attend a free training day at the school and to share our understanding of the then new EYFS guidance and curriculum. That day was a catalyst for all of us, generating a strong desire among practitioners to work together locally as professionals.

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