ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that the passage through major changes in our lives can have lasting effects on how we see ourselves, the value we feel others place on us, our sense of well-being and consequently how we are able to learn. One of the major differences that occurs as children move from home to pre-school to school education is likely to be the way in which they are seen as learners. Different views of children as learners, including the children’s own, may shed some light on why some children find such transitions easier than others. Children’s ability to claim the new setting as their own and to benefit educationally from it, may be reflected in the degree to which their educators have collaborated in a shared conceptual framework of children’s learning. This chapter considers what children are like as learners and whether or not parents’, pre-school and primary educators’ views of children differ.
