Supporting Children Through School Transitions: Starting School and Moving Up

The moment a child starts school marks one of the most significant thresholds of childhood. From a developmental perspective, it brings together the skills a child has been building throughout their earliest years – language, social confidence, physical coordination, emotional regulation and the capacity to follow instructions in a group setting – and asks them to deploy all of these simultaneously in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar adults and peers. For most children, starting school is both exciting and daunting, and the quality of their experience in the months immediately before and after the transition has measurable effects on their learning and wellbeing throughout primary school.

Yet the challenges of transition extend well beyond the initial start. The move from Reception to Year 1, from primary to secondary school, from one school to another following a house move – each represents a transition that can either consolidate or disrupt a child’s development. This article examines each of these transitions, explains what the research says about how to support them, and offers practical guidance for parents and practitioners.

Why Transitions Matter: The Evidence

Research on school transitions consistently finds that children who experience transition well – who settle quickly, form positive relationships with teachers and peers, and maintain their confidence and wellbeing – have better educational and social outcomes throughout their school career. The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) study, one of the most significant longitudinal studies of early childhood in England, found that the quality of children’s pre-school experience and the quality of their transition into primary school were both independently associated with attainment and social adjustment at age eleven.

The factors that best predict successful transitions are well established. Secure attachment – the presence of at least one trusted adult in the new setting who knows the child and responds warmly and consistently to their individual needs – is the most powerful single predictor. Language and communication skills, social competence (the ability to join a peer group, take turns and manage conflict) and emotional regulation (the capacity to manage frustration and anxiety without becoming dysregulated) are also strong and consistent predictors of a smooth transition.

What does not predict successful transition as strongly as parents often assume: academic knowledge. Children who begin school knowing their letters and numbers do not consistently outperform children who begin school without this knowledge, provided the latter group have strong social and emotional foundations. This finding has important implications for how pre-school preparation time is spent. Drilling phonics before Reception begins is significantly less effective than nurturing confidence, independence and the capacity to manage frustration.

Starting School: Preparing for Reception

The transition into Reception is, for most children, their first encounter with a large, full-day institutional environment. Even children who have attended nursery full-time will find Reception different: larger classes, a broader peer group, higher child-to-staff ratios and a more structured daily routine. The most effective preparation focuses on social and emotional readiness rather than academic content:

• Independence in self-care: practising dressing and undressing for PE, managing a lunchbox, using the toilet independently and washing hands reduces anxiety about practical challenges at school. Children who are confident in these daily tasks have significantly more cognitive and emotional bandwidth for the social and academic demands of the day.
• Honest, positive talk about school: describing what will happen without pretending it will always be easy. Children cope better with challenges they have been warned about than with challenges they encounter unexpectedly.
• Pre-visits and transition sessions: taking advantage of school induction days, visiting the school building and, where possible, meeting the class teacher before term begins. Familiarity with the physical space reduces the novelty load of the first day.
• Consistent routines: establishing reliable sleep and morning routines several weeks before school begins, so that the timetable change is not also a routine change. The transition is significantly harder for children who are also adjusting to new wake-up times and bedtimes.

Some regression in the early weeks of school is entirely normal and does not indicate that something has gone wrong. Children who have been reliably emotionally regulated at home or nursery may become more easily upset, more clingy or less cooperative. Appetite and sleep may be disrupted. This is the normal developmental response to a major simultaneous increase in cognitive, social and emotional demand. It typically resolves within four to eight weeks as children adjust and begin to form new relationships. Parents who respond with warmth, predictability and low anxiety – rather than with escalating concern or overreaction – support the fastest recovery.

The Reception to Year 1 Transition

The move from Reception to Year 1 is, paradoxically, one of the most significant and least well-supported transitions in English education. It is less visible than starting school or moving to secondary, and therefore receives less institutional attention and parental preparation. Yet it represents a major shift in pedagogy: Reception is predominantly play-based, child-led and grounded in continuous provision across different areas of the classroom and outdoor environment. Year 1 introduces a formal curriculum, discrete lessons, handwriting practice, structured phonics work and a significantly more constrained, teacher-directed day.

Research has identified a phenomenon sometimes called the “Year 1 dip”: a period at the start of Year 1 in which some children’s engagement, wellbeing and attainment temporarily decline relative to their end-of-Reception trajectory. This is not universal, but it is well-documented and its causes lie in the pedagogical shift rather than in the children’s capacity. Children who thrived in the play-based, exploratory environment of Reception may find the transition to formal instruction disorienting, particularly those with strong intrinsic motivation and those with additional learning needs.

High-quality Year 1 practice minimises the dip by providing a gradual transition from play-based to formal learning, maintaining elements of continuous provision into the Autumn term of Year 1, sustaining the warm adult relationships that characterised Reception, and avoiding the false choice between play and learning. Parents who notice a period of difficulty at the start of Year 1 should not automatically interpret this as a learning difficulty or a sign of poor teaching – it may simply reflect the adjustment period as children adapt to a different learning environment.

Moving Schools

Children who change schools mid-phase – due to a house move, a change in family circumstances or another reason – lose their established peer relationships, their familiarity with routines and the setting, and their existing relationships with teachers, all simultaneously. Research on mid-phase transfers finds that the adjustment period is typically longer than the initial school transition, because the child is navigating an established social environment that already has its own peer groups and norms, rather than entering a new school alongside all their peers.

Effective support for children moving schools involves both the leaving and the receiving school. The leaving school should provide a warm leaver’s report that goes beyond academic attainment to describe the child’s personality, interests, strengths and areas of support need. The receiving school should assign a buddy or peer mentor from the existing class, ensure the class teacher has been briefed on the child’s background before they arrive, and check in proactively in the first few weeks. Parents can support the child by maintaining contact with friends from the previous school, giving the child realistic time to build new friendships (typically six to twelve weeks), and communicating proactively with the new school about the child’s interests and needs rather than waiting for the school to discover them.

The Primary to Secondary Transition

The secondary school transition at the end of Year 6 is the most extensively researched transition in English education and is generally well-supported, with structured transition programmes in most areas. However, its timing – coinciding with the onset of adolescence, puberty and increasing peer social complexity – means it remains a period of heightened vulnerability for some children. Research by the National Foundation for Educational Research finds that around 40% of children experience some dip in attainment or engagement in the first year of secondary school, with the greatest risks for those with fewer social connections, SEND or prior anxiety.

Factors associated with successful primary-secondary transition include: visiting the secondary school multiple times before September; knowing at least one peer from the primary school who will be in the same form or tutor group; having a named adult at the secondary school who knows the child; and having parents who are well-informed about the transition programme and communicate positively about secondary school.

The Role of After-School Clubs and Childcare Settings

After-school clubs and holiday clubs can play a genuinely important role in supporting children through school transitions. They provide several things that the school day itself cannot.

Continuity and familiarity: for a child whose school environment has just changed dramatically, the after-school setting provides a familiar space with familiar adults and peers, which reduces the overall burden of change. The cumulative effect of multiple simultaneous changes (new school, new teacher, new classroom, new peers) is significantly harder to manage than a single change; an unchanged after-school environment acts as an anchor.

A decompression space: school requires sustained concentration, social navigation and emotional regulation at high intensity, for six or more hours per day. A good after-school club provides a lower-demand environment where children can eat, play freely and decompress without academic expectations. Children who are able to “let down” at the end of the school day are better placed to regulate their emotions at home in the evening.

A trusted adult relationship: secure attachment to a known adult outside school – an after-school key worker who has known the child for months or years – provides a secure base from which children can process their experiences of the school day. Practitioners in after-school settings often see children in their most unguarded moments and may pick up on signs of difficulty that are not visible in the more formal school environment.

Communication with parents: practitioners who see children after school, when they are tired, hungry and emotionally unguarded, are often well-placed to notice signs of a difficult transition – persistent low mood, social withdrawal, reluctance to go to school – that parents can use to inform a conversation with the school.

When to Seek Additional Support

Most transition difficulties are time-limited and resolve without formal intervention. However, some signs warrant a conversation with the school or a professional:

• Persistent school refusal – reluctance that does not diminish after the first two to four weeks, or that involves significant distress
• A sustained drop in mood or energy lasting more than six to eight weeks
• Reports of persistent bullying or social exclusion
• Significant and sustained changes in eating, sleeping or toileting that persist beyond the initial adjustment period
• Regression to behaviours associated with a much earlier developmental stage that does not resolve

Early identification of difficulties makes a very significant difference to outcomes. Schools have safeguarding responsibilities that extend to children’s emotional wellbeing, and most will welcome a proactive conversation from parents who are concerned about how their child is settling in. Raising concerns early is far more effective than waiting to see whether difficulties resolve on their own.

For related guidance, see also our articles on social and emotional development, play-based learning, school readiness and children’s mental health.