Helping your child with disability manage a school transition
You may be thinking about a transition from preschool to kindergarten, from primary to high school, from one year to another in the same school or changing schools midway through primary or high school. Transitions happen for all of us across each day, week, month. For children at school key transitions include:
- from home to school and back home
- into school and the classroom
- between classrooms and teachers
- outdoor play/break times
- across the school for example to the library, bathroom, canteen.
We know routines and planning are key to always supporting children. This is especially true at times of change and transition. Here we provide a range of suggestions and ideas. Some will be specifically relevant to a primary or high school transition; others will be universal and relevant to any transition point for any child. Some ideas will be dependent on your child and their learning and development.
Effective transition planning benefits all children. For some children with disability, transitions should be clearly planned over a longer time and consider the impact of changes on the student, their parents or carers, and their schools.
Transition is a partnership
The most successful transitions prioritise ongoing communication and building relationships and connections between families, their children and school.
Please talk to your child’s classroom teacher or Disability Education Coordination Officer if you have any questions about how your child will be supported at school, about reasonable adjustments for your child, or about your child’s eligibility for disability programs at your school.
A positive start to school leads to better learning and wellbeing outcomes for your child both during the transition and beyond. It helps to support your child’s continuity of learning and development. It supports children and young people to feel secure, confident and connected to new people.
Transitions
- Prepare both you and your child for what lays ahead. It looks different for everyone.
- Start conversations once you have confirmation of enrolment. Contact the new school and let your child’s current school know too.
- Your child’s voice is important. What are they looking forward to and what questions concerns or worries do they have?
- Parents and carers will meet with, staff from both the child’s current school, the new school, other involved professionals, to plan the transition. This meeting could include a young person if appropriate.
- Parents/carers continue to support child’s independence.
You may feel apprehensive and have mixed feelings about the transition. Reach out to your friends, family and health professionals for advice and support. It is important that you remain enthusiastic and positive when you speak to your child about school.
Your positivity will increase your child’s confidence.
Planning for the school year
Work with the school by sharing:
- your child’s strengths, interests, likes and needs
- your goals, hopes, wishes
- your child’s hopes, dreams and concerns
- your concerns
- what helps your child to feel connected?
- self-care needs
- wellbeing and medical
- others supporting your child
- reports/assessments
- ask questions, and
- identify your go to person or contact in the school.
Support your child at home by:
- being positive and reassuring
- listening to their concerns, and
- supporting their independence.
All About Me
An All About Me template is one way to record information about your child that can be shared with the new school teaching team. The template can be completed by parents and carers or with the child or the child may complete it themselves. In the template you can identify your child’s strengths, what works for them, what doesn’t work for them, what they are working on, what they love and calming techniques.
A range of templates are also available online for you to share information with your child’s new school and teachers.
Starting kindergarten will be easier if your child is familiar with the school environment. Transition activities are important. Practical preparations help as well such as organising uniforms, lunch boxes and school bags well ahead of the first day of school.
Starting kindergarten is a big transition for your child. Your child might need extra support and plenty of rest in the first few weeks.
What can you do as a family?
- Be positive about starting school and enjoy your child’s excitement.
- Encourage your child to do things on their own.
- Support their independence: this could be dressing, going to the toilet, washing their hands, packing their school bag, unwrapping their food and opening and closing their drink bottle and lunchbox.
- Support your child to be able to ask for help.
- Talk with your child’s current educators about things you can do at home to help your child.
- Show your child where the school is and talk about how you will get there.
- Arrange catch ups with other families whose children will be going to the same school.
How you can help your child
- Talk positively and confidently about starting school.
- Talk about and practice the change in the daily routine, how will they get to school, what time do they have to get up in the morning and what will they have in their lunch box?
- Join a remote tour of the school with your child -it’s an opportunity for them to see classrooms, playground equipment, bubblers, toilets, sick bay etc.
- Join an online ‘meet the teachers’ session and speak about them positively to your child.
- Request photos of staff who will be supporting your child and places in the school
- Look on the school website for photos of staff, the school and things that happen across the year
- Talk about supports that the school offers e.g. if there is a buddy system where an older child supports your child in their first year of school.
- Read books together about starting school.
- Develop family routines at home to support your child’s learning at school e.g., read with your child each night, help them with any homework etc.
Avoid overloading your child. When children begin school, they tire easily. It may be worth considering fewer extracurricular activities such as swimming, music or dance lessons, until they adjust to their new routine.
High school is a good time to have your child involved so they can ask their own questions and offer their own suggestions.
Moving from primary school to high school is a time of change for your child. A change which they may be looking at both with excitement and uncertainty. With good preparation you and your child can approach this time with confidence.
High school brings lots of changes, including, new teachers and more classmates. There will be extra subjects and students moving from classroom to classroom. There will also be different teaching styles used by teachers.
With help from you and the school, your child can feel supported and prepared.
When children are making the move to high school, you have the biggest influence on how smooth the transition is. While your child’s friends do influence how your child feels about the move, your support has stronger and longer-lasting effects.
Children often have mixed feelings when starting high school. They might be excited about new friends, subjects & teachers. They can be nervous about learning new routines, making new friends or wearing a new uniform. They may be worried about the workload and ‘fitting in’.
High school tools
- Have an example of the school timetable and a map of the school at home
- Join the ‘meet the teacher’ remote meetings
- Join a remote tour of the school
- Explore the school website
- If your child has friends going to the same school, encourage them to go together for the first few days or have an agreed meet up place
- Colour coding books and textbooks (a different colour for each subject). This is useful for easy identification
- A weekly timetable for home, with a colour coding grid to match their books. This will help to remind them what to pack in their bag for the day
- Tactile coding can also be useful, for example, small pieces of sandpaper inside the textbook and the same inside the relevant exercise book
- Buddy systems are used successfully in many schools.
12 tips to help your child moving to high school
- Be positive. It will help your child feel better and learn better.
- Reassure them. Nerves are normal and it helps to talk about it.
- Get to know the school. Attend orientation and transition programs.
- Practise getting to and from school. Work out public transport routes and pick-up and drop-off zones.
- Organise stuff. Get books, stationery, equipment, a school bag and uniform.
- Understand the school routine. Talk through the timetable and make copies.
- Create a study space. Set up somewhere quiet away from distractions.
- Help them make friends. Find out if there’s a buddy system your child can join.
- Build their resilience. Set positive goals to keep things on track.
- Discuss safety issues. Make plans to manage different situations.
- Connect with the school. Join school social media channels to stay up to date.
- Make a fresh start. No matter how hard things have been at primary school, high school can be a fresh start. Let the school know if your child needs extra support.
Source: Queensland Education.
A variety of planning tools with prompts and examples for children and young people starting primary school and high school are available online. These use pictures and text to remind children of the steps in the morning routine in getting ready for school.
Positive Partnerships 
is an Australian Government project that provides planning tools for families including a visual planning matrix for primary school children.
In their Planning Tool templates the observations and examples column is designed for you to record exactly what you see or hear the child doing, for example – how do they communicate? How do they interact with family and peers? How do they best learn new things?
The helpful and unhelpful impacts column is where you consider and record the impacts of those observations on the child themselves or those around them.
The strategies and adjustments column records what might be in place to support the student and what may help in the future.
Starting School: A Guide for Families
The ACT Education Guide provides information and tips for families including term dates and helpful contacts. The Before your child starts school page provides a number of tips for families. The children’s book ‘My first day at big school’ 
(5Mb) and ‘We’re excited’ (4.4Mb) are about starting primary school. Visit the webpage.
Starting high school
Information and tips for families including a listing of public high schools is available from the webpage. The Transition of Primary School Students to High Schools video is also available with advice for families about the transition to high school.
Parent Engagement
Parent Engagement webpage provides a series of factsheets that were developed by the ACT Education Directorate in partnership with the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, the Catholic Education Office and the Association of Independent Schools.
Parent Factsheet: What you can do at home. Parental Engagement in Primary School (1Mb)
Parent Factsheet: Parental Engagement in High School (254kb)
Resources for parents – Children Aged 5-12
This webpage provides tips and ideas about the things parents and carers can do to help your child’s learning. Visit the webpage.
Resources for parents – Young people aged 13-18
This webpage provides tips and ideas for parents and carers to support young people’s learning and education during the high school and college years. Visit the webpage.
Websites
Positive Partnerships
Positive Partnerships is a national project funded by the Australian Government through the Helping Children with Autism program.
Raising Children – the Australian parenting website
Raising Children.net.au is funded by the Australian Government and provides information and tips for families including articles, videos and resources.
Reimagine Australia
Reimagine Australia provides resources to help families, practitioners and educators to help facilitate a child with additional needs in their transition to school.
All Play
All Play provides parents and carers, teachers, health professionals with resources and information to support children who experience developmental challenges or disabilities. The Parent Resources page provides ‘Life’ with information about life skills, tools and strategies for parents and carers. ‘Move’ provides resources on movement, physical activity and health. ‘Learn’ provides resources and information to promote inclusion and support your child’s education.
Spark their Future
The Spark their Future website from the Department of Education Queensland provides tips, information and support to help your child to get the most from their education.
Videos
Starting School
Jane Godwin and Anna Walker are the authors of Starting School the children’s book focussing on the experiences and feelings of five very different children as they begin at school for the first time. In this video Jane Goodwin reads the book to children.
First Day
In this video the book First Day by Andrew Daddo and illustrated by Jonathan Bentley is read aloud for children.
Lucy’s First Day at School
This video presents an episode from the BBC Sixth Sense TV CBeebies series.
To help your child be confident about starting a new school you may like to consider the following:
- Drive, ride or walk past the school
- Practice the morning routine
- Get used to wearing a new uniform and carrying a new school bag
- Explore the school website
- Request a photo of a staff member. This doesn’t need to the class teacher just someone they will see around the school, a familiar face
- Request photos of parts of the school that your child will regularly access
- Make a social story.
On day one
- Say goodbye confidently – saying a quick, confident goodbye may help them to feel secure and reassured that you trust that they will be okay at school.
- Label your child’s belongings - labelling everything, including clothing, can help reduce anxiety for children, school staff and yourself.
- Communicate with your child – take time to tell your child what might be happening at school that day, and in the afternoon, ask your child about their day. This is a great way to build confidence, and to find out how they are feeling as they settle in.
- If you have any concerns talk with your child’s teacher, who will provide further insight to their day.
Some further take away messages:
- Be positive and reassuring
- Include your child in planning
- Ask questions of the school
- Share information with the school
- Work with your child’s current team to identify key priorities to support their transition. For example, communication, self-help, and independence.
- Importantly identify your contact, key go to person at school.
At times connections may need to be made remotely, including schools providing:
- teacher meetings online
- virtual tours of the school
- social stories, photos of staff and learning spaces.
Our schools are committed to working with you. Schools want their students to have successful transitions to feel supported, welcome and safe.
Be reassured that you can reach out to your child’s school.