First Steps

Good transitions are crucial in enabling children to settle into your setting and make progress.  ‘First Steps’ offers a wealth of information to help you to support the child and their family make a successful start at your setting.  In particular, SENCOs should look at pages 12 – 15 which relate to gathering information on any existing Special Educational Needs and Disabilities the child may have prior to starting with you.

The transition from home toolkit has been developed in order to build on existing good practice in Barnet and to ensure that all children starting at their first setting – be that a playgroup, nursery, day care setting or childminder have access to a transition based on best practice.

The aims of ‘First Steps’ are:

• to establish a coherent Barnet-wide transition procedure for all early years children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, moving from home to their first setting
• to provide children, parents and practitioners with tools and materials to support this procedure

The folder is divided into sections with guidelines on how to use the relevant materials and pro-forma at the beginning of each section. The pocket at the back of the folder contains the additional booklets and leaflets.

The CD-ROM contains all the pro-forma’s so that you can personalise and copy them for your use as needed.

This toolkit is the result of an 18 month pilot project that has involved numerous Barnet early years settings, parents, children and local authority colleagues. I would like to thank everyone involved in what has been a successful and rewarding project. A list of the early years settings who took part in the pilot project and those others who have contributed to it can be found at the back of the toolkit.