ABSTRACT
Pupils make educational transitions as they start school, as they progress through school, and as they move between schools. These transitions require pupils to acclimatise to new surroundings, to adapt to new ways of working, to make sense of new rules and routines, and to interact with unfamiliar adults and peers (Sanders et al. 2005). Transitions therefore make intense demands on the three behaviour for learning relationships. It is important that we retain a focus on each of these relationships, but relationship with self assumes particular significance in relation to transitions. It is this relationship above all others that determines the pupil’s ability to respond to the challenges of transition. It is this ability that may influence the ways in which the pupil progresses and develops (Sanders et al. 2005). It has been suggested pupils’ experiences of transition in the early years may be particularly influential:
Each of these experiences is likely to affect children and their capacity to adjust and to learn. Such is the significance of early transitions for young children that it is essential that parents, educators, policy makers and politicians pay close attention to young children’s experiences in order to provide well for them.
