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to school programs should address continuity (or change) to the same degree in each
of these categories. Perhaps there can be strong continuity in terms of physical matters
– the preschool and school share the same site – and social matters – children may
move from preschool to school as part of a large cohort of friends, but not in terms
of philosophy – play-based, constructivist curriculum in the preschool and a subject-
based, teacher-centred curriculum in the school. any other combination of continuity
and change in the three categories, along with gradations between these, are possible
in practice. It is certainly not the situation that we can say greater continuity in the
three categories will lead to a more effective transition, nor can we say that greater
discontinuity will benefit this transition.
One thing that does seem clear is that, as children start school, the demands go up
and the supports go down. To help ex­plain what this statement means, Pianta (2004,
cited in Dockett & Perry, 2007, p. 124) identifies four significant areas of change as
children start school:
1 There is a shift in the academic demands of children. Many children are ex­pect-
ed to engage in tasks that may be unfamiliar to them, and their performance on
these tasks is used to compare children and make educational decisions.
2 The social environment of school is much more complex­ than that of home or
prior-to-school setting. Not only are there many more peers to interact with, as
well as a wider range and greater number of children overall, interaction patterns
with adults are different from those in other settings.
3 There is less parent support in the day-to-day activities of school than in either
home or prior-to-school settings. Parents can feel less engaged with school and
children can feel that parents are less involved.
4 There is less time in school for individual attention from the teacher. Even with
small classes, the decrease in staff:child ratios means that teachers have less time
to respond on an individual level.
We have found (Dockett & Perry, 2007) that all the significant players in a child’s
transition to school ex­pect that there will be changes as the child starts school.
Children are clear that they want there to be change. They ex­pect school to be different
and, generally, see this to be positive. They are keen to become ‘big kids’ and starting
school is one way for their enhanced status to be recognised. Parents and educators
also ex­pect change, but it is notable that neither adult group sees itself changing nearly
as much as the children who are making the transition to school. The ex­pecta-tion is
that the least ex­perienced participants in the transition – the children – will change the
most (Dockett, Perry, & Nicolson, 2002).
In her chapter on preschool and the first years of elementary school in Sweden,
Pramling Samuelsson (2006) provides the following summary of attempts to improve
coordination between preschools and schools as children make the transition from one
to the other. Such coordination is seen as an important precursor to effective transition
to school programs. a review of transition to school studies has revealed four major
themes:
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