Top tips for improving relationships with schools

• Mutually agreed handover formats – ideally the same format for the whole local area. This ensures both settings and schools have the same expectations about the information that will be handed over with each child.
• Create space for staff to build relationships – great examples of this are transition cluster meetings where key staff can get to know each other, ‘speed dating’ events, and SENCO meetings across early years and school stages.
• The most popular action desired by the practitioners we surveyed was for the local authority to lead a process of creating a one-page agreement on transitions so that both schools and settings know what is expected of them and are held to account.
• Early years setting leads should try to represent the sector on schools forum and other strategic groups in the local authority. This builds the recognition of and value placed on the early years as school heads learn to see them as education professionals.

Top tips for involving parents

• Start discussions about transitions as early as possible in recognition that for parents of children with SEND, it is more complicated to decide where they should go.
• Give ideas for activities to prepare their child for transition that they can use at home – both in the term before they leave and also throughout the summer break. Ideally this should also be available on social media, so parents have a place to go for new ideas and support even when the setting may be closed.
• Share positive stories about outcomes for children with SEND who take various pathways in education. Bear in mind that negative stories are often repeated more than positive ones, so actively build examples of positive outcomes in the mainstream.
• Support parents to apply for an EHCP if that is what is needed. This can have a huge effect on transition by allowing the school to get resources and support in advance of the child arriving.
• Have open and honest discussions with parents, and keep them regularly updated even if there is no progress on applications or processes. It is a highly stressful time and they need to know you are there with them – even if you don't have positive news.
• Link families to local SEND parent voice groups so that they can meet others in the same situation as them. Many families say that the supportive friendships they make at this time can last them for life, because their peers understand and will stay with them long after the early years professionals have gone.

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Read the full article, written by Catherine McLeod for Nursery World here.