Listening to Children’s Advice about Starting School and School Age Care

Reflecting the importance of drawing on children’s perspectives to shape professional practice, this book offers a nuanced approach to understanding the aims, implications and practicalities of accessing and incorporating children’s perspectives in pedagogial practices relating to transitions. Listening to Children’s Advice about Starting School and School Age Care:

• emphasises the importance of listening to and respecting children’s perspectives at the time of their transitions to school and school age care;
• shares children’s perspectives of the transition to school and school age care in ways that are both authentic and provocative;
• explores implications for practice as a consequence of children’s input;
• provokes a deep level of critical reflection and practice/policy development that is informed by a dialogue between research and practice.

Chapters report research conducted in seven different countries to highlight approaches that acknowledge and respect children’s input, and use this as a basis for critical reflection on practice, with a view to improving the children’s transition experiences. Using examples of practice and offering practical and theoretical insights, the book illustrates the multiplicity of children’s perspectives, and prompts educators to reflect on and critique practice.

This book will be invaluable reading for researchers, students, educators and practitioners involved in young children’s transitions to school and school-age care.