Transition from Day-Care Centres to School: What Kind of Information Do Schools Want from Day-Care Centres and Parents, and What Kind of Information Do the Two Parties Want to Give Schools?

The study has focused on the transition from day-care centre to school. Questionnaires were completed by staff at several day-care centres, at three schools recruiting pupils from these and by the parents of these children. Schools were asked what kind of information they thought it was important to receive from the other parties about children beginning school. Similarly, the pre school teachers and the parents were asked what kind of information they thought of as important to convey to the schools. All three groups of respondents reported broadly similar priorities regarding information, the highest being information about special needs, followed by information about social competence. The parents attached more importance to their children's development and cognitive characteristics than did the professionals, expressing most concern about insufficient challenges in school. The paper will give further results and in particular discuss how the parties see risk factors. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables and 3 footnotes.)