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This guide on schools’ readiness for children includes examples of supporting early years’ practitioners and teachers in schools to upskill in their understanding of how best to develop the children’s skills, and becoming more confident in their own practice and its impact. It also includes examples of early years settings working in partnership with schools to ensure better transitions for young children from early years’ settings to nursery and primary schools.
Learning from A Better Start: What works to enable schools to be ready for children?
- Better and more frequent communication and collaboration between early years practitioners and teachers in nursery and primary schools, especially in the area of speech, language and communication and assessment information on individual children.
- Joint training for the workforce across early years settings and schools (including childminders, day nurseries and preschools), which increases the knowledge, skills, confidence and practice of all concerned.
- Long-term, in-context and personalised support for early years practitioners and teachers which helped everyone to understand the community that their setting serves.
- Creating locally based peer networks that meet regularly to share experiences, learning and resources.
- Using the summer before the child starts school to bridge the gap between finishing in an early years setting and starting school.
- Emotional development and trauma informed practices to support transition and emotional welfare of young children.
- Inclusive first routines, curriculum and pedagogies – inclusion benefits every child including those with identified or emerging SEND.
Contents of this guide
- Better and more frequent communication and collaboration
- Joint training for the workforce
- Long-term, in context and personalised support to understand the community
- Locally-based peer networks
- Using the summer to bridge the gap between the child’s experience of early year’s settings and school
- Further resources on school readiness
1. Better and more frequent communication and collaboration
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Think about these questions:
- How much communication and collaboration does your setting have with other early years practitioners, including childminders, and teachers in nursery and primary schools?
- How could communication and collaboration be further enhanced between early years practitioners and teachers?
- What barriers might prevent further collaboration and how might these be overcome?
- How can schools support teachers and practitioners to develop better knowledge and understanding of child development including social and emotional aspects and the importance of belonging and attunement?
2. Joint training for the workforce
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Read:
Read this blog about Blackpool Better Start’s Ready Steady School programme which discusses support for families and professionals.
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Think about these questions:
- To what extent does your setting engage in joint training with other early years professionals, teachers and allied-health professionals (e.g. speech and language therapists)?
- How useful has this joint training been? How could it be improved?
- What changes have you made to your practice as a result of such training?
- If you have never engaged in joint training, why is this? What barriers need to be removed for you to participate in such training?
3. Long-term, in-context and personalised support to understand the community
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Think about these questions:
- What supports you to understand the community, families, and children your setting serves? How might this be improved?
- How do your staff take steps to understand, celebrate and include the cultural needs of the community and ensure that all families are feel welcomed, included and represented?
- What actions can you take to ensure all members of the community feel understood and represented in the daily school life, the curriculum and activities?
- Communities rarely stand still. How has your setting responded to changes in the community over time? How successful have these responses been?
4. Locally-based peer networks
Join:
Join your local Early Years Stronger Practice Hub or Local Authority early years network.
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Think about these questions:
- Does your setting currently engage in any locally based peer networks? How effective are these networks? In what ways might such networks be improved?
- How has engaging with such networks changed your practice in terms of enabling schools to be ready for children?
- If your setting does not engage in any locally based peer networks, why is this? What barriers need to be overcome for this to happen?
5. Using the summer to bridge the gap between the child’s experience of early year’s settings and school
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Watch:
Watch this short video from the Southend ABSS Talking Transitions Programme which is about schools and early years’ settings working together to help schools get ready for children.
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Think about these questions:
If you are working in an early years’ setting:
- How do you link with schools to help them get ready for the children who will be transferring from your setting?
- How does you setting support transition and what helps schools get ready for the children from your setting?
- How do you share the range of inclusive strategies and provisions that enable children to feel safe, engage and learn?
- Have you had to overcome any challenges to help your setting link with schools to effectively get ready for children? What have these been?
- What else could you do to further enhance this work?
If you are a teacher in a school
- How does your school prepare for the children and families to feel a sense of belonging when starting in your school?
- How do you link with early years settings to support you to get ready for the children who will be transferring from the setting?
- What training and support might you and your team need to be better prepared to support children’s developmental, emotional and learning needs when they start reception?
- Have you had to overcome any challenges to help your school effectively get ready for children? What have these been?
- What else could you do to further enhance this work?
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6. Further resources on school readiness
Starting reception
Practical guidance for parents, carers and early years settings to support children to develop skills they need to thrive when starting Reception
Potty training
Guidance for practitioners and families
NHS
This film is for parents and families of nursery or pre-school aged children and looks at how can encourage a healthy move to Reception
Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs – DfE
Stronger Practice Hubs have established regional networks of cross-sector early years providers and organisations (including childminders) to support evidence-informed early years practice and knowledge sharing
Family Hubs
List of family hub sites - GOV.UK
Early years and the transition to school
A webinar from Anna Freud: Early Years and the Transition to School
Embedding a whole-school approach to mental health
5 Steps to Mental Health and Wellbeing
Other resources
- A Better Start Southend (2025) Stories of Impact, From Birth to School: Supporting Social, Emotional and Communication Development in Southend. Available at From Birth to School
- Kindred2 (2025) Starting Reception: Your child’s journey to school starts at home. Available at Starting Reception
- Lushey, C., Tura, F., Paechter, C. and Wood, J. (2019) Evaluation of Small Steps Big Changes First Annual Report: 2019. Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families, Nottingham Trent University. Available at Evaluation of Small Steps Big Changes First Annual Report
- National Children’s Bureau (2025) Building a system that delivers for early childhood: Reflections from the NCB Summit. Available atBuilding a system that delivers for early childhood
- National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2007) The Timing and Quality of Early Experiences Combine to Shape Brain Architecture: Working Paper No. 5. Available at www.developingchild.harvard.edu
- UNICEF (2002) A world fit for children, New York. Available at A World Fit for Children
- UNICEF (2012) School Readiness: a conceptual framework, New York. Available at School Readiness. A conceptual Framework