Tricky Transitions, Transforming Transitions…

Transitions happen all through the year, all through the day, but we are coming up to the time of year when transitions become a big deal. The way we handle the process of children moving from one class to another, from one school to another or starting school or nursery is so important.

Observations, Questions and Reflections
The way we reflect on each individual child, what we observe that is important to share are the keys to helping those who will welcome them to get it right- from the start.

The questions we ask and the connections we make, with the parents, with their key people, with the children themselves will form the foundations for our future relationships. They will inform how the adults around them feel as the child tentatively takes their next steps into unfamiliar territory.

And of course, the child is at the centre - how that child feels, as they step through the door, but way before that... as they imagine and anticipate what life will be like in their new world.

It’s the depth that makes the difference!
Many years ago, before I became a SENCo, I knew the word transition, but I had no idea of the depth, and the detail that the very best schools and settings - of all kinds go to. They put so much in place to make their children’s first feelings as they tentatively tiptoe… or storm into their new environments as positive as they can possibly be. Why is this so important? These places of education, of caring and connection are going to be their second home for so much of their little lives - it is the depth that makes the difference!

The complexities of children’s needs
With the complexities of the children’s needs, the huge differences and diversities in families, environments, and our settings, and simply the practicalities of new starts, new uniforms, new terms the details and the depths are what helps us to get the little things right.

We may not think it but with these new starts come new smells, new sounds, new shoes - change is challenging for us all but imagine how that feels when you are neurodivergent and/or have individual needs.

With all this subtlety and complexity, it seems impossible - but who knew that getting it right could be so simple?

I cared what mattered most…
Until I found the FingerTips TALKING TOGETHER tool, an unforgettable framework based on the five fingers of your hand, I used to ask purely practical questions, do the things I had always done-and it was fine… But the first time I started my conversations with parents using FingerTips I saw their shoulders fall, their tension lift - they knew that I not only cared about their child, I cared what mattered most to their child - and to them. When I used FingerTips to have conversations with teachers, with early years practitioners, I discovered the depths they knew innately about their children - the specific strategies that make things successful for every individual.

Value the child’s voice
FingerTips is so simple it is perfectly possible to talk to the children, to value the child’s voice - even for those who are not yet verbal - to observe and reflect on what the child would answer if they could find the words that worked to describe…

‘What makes you shine inside?’

'What helps you or who helps you?’

and the question for today - ‘What is tricky and how do you tackle it?’
So, take your left hand, hold your middle finger horizontal- rub your right index finger along. This finger represents the longest journey. On any journey there are always bumps in the road so the question for the third of our FingerTips is ‘What is tricky and how did you tackle it’

Transitions are tricky, but we can transform them
for everyone involved, simply using
FingerTips TALKING TOGETHER and the five fingers of our hand.

Find out more about Transforming your Transitions and how you can tackle it by:

• Contacting me, Ali McClure and my terrific team at office@imcclure.co.uk
• Reading the FingerTips TALKING TOGETHER book or e-book, both available from my Online Shop
• Listening to me and my special guest, Medusa Sojourn in May's Talking Together Podcast