Schools Guidance For Induction

A Discussion Paper on Induction and Transition into Reception Classes in Devon Schools

Purpose

This is a discussion paper for Devon Association of Primary Heads (DAPH) and Devon Association of Governors (DAG) members to consider during the spring term of 2013. The Early Years and Childcare Service welcome your feedback.

This paper is intended to raise issues that have been identified, resolve the confusion that exists and lead Devon schools towards an agreed transition and induction practice that can be easily communicated to families.

We ask that you respond to the following question:

Should induction and transition arrangements into reception classes be agreed by,

 all Devon Primary and Infant schools,  at Local Learning Community level  by individual schools?

We also want to challenge current practice so that schools take time to reflect on, ‘why are we doing what we’re doing?’ and ‘how could we achieve our intended outcomes by doing things differently or better?’

A Lead Early Years Consultant in Babcock LDP and the Devon County Council (DCC) Early Years Development Manager have jointly written this paper, as the issues encompass DCC policy and practice in schools.

Background and the issues raised

Since the introduction of the single offer point (SOP) monitoring reports have been written for the Local Admissions Forum (LAF1) on the impact of the SOP on schools, settings and the local authority. LAF members recommended that this paper be produced for DAPH to broaden discussion on the topic of induction and transition.

Following the introduction of the SOP in September 2011, it became evident that there is a lot of very different practice in place to support induction and transition for young children starting school. This in itself is not a bad thing however parents found it difficult to understand.

Legislation relating to admissions was not always fully understood by schools or by parents.

Several parents called the Local Authority having accepted a place in school and been told by schools that their child could not start on the first day of term and/ or their child would have to start attending part time and build up to a full day.

1 LAF – whose role has now been combined into the Devon Education Forum subgroup – Schools Organisation, Capital and Admissions forum

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 1 We found confusion about deferring entry (although nothing had actually changed, the SOP presented deferring as an option that may not have been considered before) – Schools wanted to know what funding would be available. Parents and early years settings wanted to know how much time would be funded if entry is deferred. Several people asked how long could a child defer entry for?

Schools asked about induction and home visiting practices and the appropriateness of visits to schools and/ or homes during the spring term. Some children would still be three and there was the long summer holiday to get through before the child started in September.

Officers began to ask whether children were receiving an equitable experience. It was not clear whether children that deferred entry or attended school part time got the same induction and transition arrangements as children choosing to attend full time in September.

Funding for part time and deferred places in school caused some confusion too for Head teachers and administrators.

Teachers often ask the Early Years Consultant team about induction and transition and this paper provides an opportunity to remind them of the key messages.

What do we mean by Induction and Transition?

Induction is the process by which we ‘introduce’ children to school.

Transition is the means by which we ensure ‘smooth passage from one place to another’.

Schools need to consider these alongside each other when considering the best approach for admitting children into reception classes. If good transition arrangements are in place, there should be no need for lengthy induction periods.

The purpose of induction is to develop a relationship of trust with parents, and a familiarity with school for the child. This supports the child’s settling-in process and ensures that parents feel they can approach staff at any time to discuss their child’s learning and development.

There are no county guidelines around induction and there is no statutory requirement for schools to offer an induction period. Consequently, there is a variety of practice around induction across the county, with an increasing number of individual schools and Local Learning Communities adopting an approach of their own.

Induction procedures may be constrained by an ‘always done it this way’ approach; so it is a good time to review practice with the revised Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework now available and the emphasis on reflective practice within it.

What Practice is Currently in Place?

Traditionally many schools have adopted a ‘staggered entry’ whereby the children attend part time for a period, building up to full time attendance sometime during the term in which they

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 2 start school. This practice can caused difficulties for working parents and so it is important for the needs of parents to be considered alongside the needs of the child.

Given that the majority of children have already attended an Early Years setting by the time they start school (6800 out of 7000 children in Devon), this practice may no longer be appropriate.

If a school place has been offered and the parent has accepted that place, the child must be able to start on the first day of term. This applies to both part time and full time places.

Statutory School Starting Age and Deferring Entry

Children must be in full-time education at the beginning of the term following their fifth birthday. The single offer point has meant that schools mainly admit children to the Reception class in the September following the child’s fourth birthday. As this is an offer not a requirement, parents can choose either a full or part time place or to defer entry until a later date.

If even one parent opts for their child to start in January (or at the start of the summer term), due consideration needs to be given to the child’s individual needs in the same way as a large group of children. The child should have the same induction and transition opportunities as the children that were admitted in September. Both parents and children need fairness and equality of opportunity to access school activities during an induction process, regardless of how many sessions or hours they attend. Parents need to be fully informed of what will be happening and when.

The Early Years Entitlement Funding (EYEF) will continue to be given to early years providers for children that have deferred entry up until the start of the term following the child’s fifth birthday.

Schools are not required to tell the Local Authority if children defer entry to reception classes so it is not possible to provide data on deferred entry. However, we do know that there were 84 children accessing the early years entitlement (15 funded hours for 3 and 4 year olds) that turned five before the completion of the 2011/12 school year. This is down by around 20% on previous years. The majority (82%) of these children were attending funded nursery classes in independent schools. It is assumed that these 84 children will continue their education within the independent sector. We can therefore deduce that very few parents in the maintained sector choose to defer entry to school. We would expect that those who do defer may only do so for up to one term; it is probable that these children will be summer born and therefore the youngest in the cohort.

In autumn term 2011, there were 122 children attending reception classes part time. This fell to 23 in spring term 2012.

Length of Induction Period and Funding

Teachers make their ‘on entry’ judgements in the first few weeks of term, with the understanding that most children will have settled by then. There are no hard and fast rules

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 3 to the induction process; it has to be what is right for everyone involved – children, parents, and the school.

The end of the induction period is now more likely to be dictated by the changes to school funding. With schools being funded based on attendance during the census week in October rather than January in any one-year, it is anticipated that most schools will have all children attending full time by the first week in October.

Children attending part time in September increasing to full time in January will be funded as full time regardless of the number of hours attending the setting.

Devon Education Forum has approved that where pupil numbers in January exceed the growth baseline Number On Roll (NOR) the numbers over and above will be automatically funded at the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU) rate. This will apply to both maintained and academy schools.

Best Practice

This guidance is set around examples of best practice and identifies the need to view all children as unique individuals.

 Induction arrangements must reflect what a teacher knows and understands about young children.  Arrangements should be flexible rather than fixed, to ensure every child’s needs are met and parents can feel confident that their child will settle happily.  The school needs to be ready for the child rather than the child ready for school.

Home Visiting

Home visits have long been recognised as a feature of good Early Years practice – the practitioner entering the home to meet the child in their familiar environment – and many teachers will argue the benefits of undertaking such visits. There is no statutory requirement to do home visits however, and recently questions have been raised around the effectiveness of home visiting.

Schools should consider the following when deciding whether they want to make this significant investment of time:

 Safety of staff (not lone visits)  Cost of releasing staff and providing supply cover  Cost of travel in rural areas  Wishes of parents (it must be an offer rather than an expectation)  An alternative offer of visits to a child’s early years setting or for the parent to visit school  Who should visit – key person?  When should visits take place?  How else could the information be gleaned?

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 4  Is the member of staff sufficiently experienced?  Is this the best use of teacher’s time?

If home visits are undertaken, schools should have a clear rationale on how and when they occur, set within their admissions2 policy. Staff should be given appropriate time to carry out the visits and should not be expected to complete them in their own time or at their own expense. Home visits should not be arranged to coincide with school INSET days.

Do bear in mind that some working parents may only be at home in evenings.

Considerations for Teachers

Whilst it is acknowledged that many children will have already attended a setting and will be accustomed to long periods away from parents, many children do find that the demands of a school day are different to their day in an Early Years setting. There are many factors that can impact on children at this time.

The structure of the class will have an impact if reception children are in mixed age classes with older children or if a reception class has a more formal rather than play based approach. The environment may seem daunting at first if toilets are not immediately accessible or if there is a large dining room where echo and sounds are amplified. The playground may seem large and noisy after small, enclosed outdoor play spaces.

In each case, this type of impact will be reduced if there have been strong links with feeder settings and/or with the family prior to admission.

Consideration needs to be given to planning in the first few weeks of term. Staff must have sufficient time to support children to settle into school. It may not be appropriate to use topics and themes as staff will need to focus on the settling-in process.

Time will be needed to familiarise the children with routines and rhythms across the day - these are key to a child’s emotional needs and well-being. Time also needs to be invested in showing new children how to use and look after the class resources to ensure that the quality of the learning environment is maintained . Staff also need time to respond to children’s needs and interests – this is particularly important during the early days. Children will make greater demands on adults’ time when they are finding their way around a new environment and teachers will be making ‘on entry’ judgements to inform their planning. Adults need to be able to play or read with the children spontaneously when a child seeks them out; it is the quality of this early interaction that forms the basis of the child’s trust and enjoyment of learning in school.

Effective deployment of staff, such as Teaching Assistants and Meal Time Assistants, also needs due consideration to ensure that children‘s Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) needs are met in terms of care and consistency of adult approach and contact. It is good practice to have the school Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator

2 You may instead have an induction/transition or starting school policy that covers all these aspects.

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 5 (SENCO) involved in induction processes so that they are aware of expectations and able to work with staff if there is a need for additional intervention for any child.

Impact on Parents and Children

If a child has been attending an early years setting prior to starting school, they may be used to attending that setting full time between 8.00am and 6.00pm and may have been doing this since they were a few months old.

In the case above, a parent often uses childcare to enable them to work. If a school then asks that the child attends part time, this could be both disruptive for the child, who is used to being in one setting all day, and costly and inconvenient for the parent, who would need to try and find childcare for the child around the ‘induction’ time so that they can continue to go to work. The child’s place in nursery may already be taken by another full time child; therefore the child may not be able to continue to access that setting.

Links with Feeder Settings

If the school has good links with its feeder setting/s across the year there should be no need to have a particular ‘time’ when visits to school have to happen – be it July or September. It may however be appropriate for some children to have the opportunity to visit school before they start as well so that they are familiar with the environment and staff.

Schools should allow time for teachers to visit feeder settings and get to know the children, what they like doing, who their friends are and what support they may need.

There is a need for planned, purposeful transition arrangements that start in the summer term (or earlier). This is particularly important when a child has additional needs meaning the school SENCO needs to be involved in any visits to settings and be a full part of the process.

Many schools have one or two feeder settings but some have as many as fifteen (or more). The number of feeder settings that your school has will determine how you work with them. If you have many feeder groups you many decide that it would not be practical to visit them all and should make alternative arrangements.

Devon’s Learning Journey

All early years providers that are in receipt of the EYEF are required to complete the documentation on Devon’s Learning Journey: http://www.babcockeducation.co.uk/ldp/view_folder.asp? folderid=16023&depth=3&rootid=2346&level1=&level1id=&level2=6858&level2id=6858&level3=16023 &level3id=16023 http://www.babcock-education.co.uk/ldp/v.asp? level2=6858&depth=2&level3=6858&level2id=6858&rootid=2346&nextlevel=6858&folderid=6 858

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 6 Further reading

Home Visiting

Very little literature is available on home visiting before starting school.

http://www.realonline.group.shef.ac.uk/docs/Home%20Visiting%20a%20Conversation.pdf

Kiely, T (2012) The Point of Home Visits, Early Years Educator , volume 13, no. 9, January 2012, pp22-25.

Some Teaching Unions have useful guidance for staff:

http://www.atl.org.uk/Images/The%20early%20years.pdf

http://www.new2teaching.org.uk/tzone/health_and_safety/assaults/Homevisiting.asp http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/12524

There is more information available for parents about home visiting:

http://www.parentdish.co.uk/back-to-school/starting-primary-school-advice-secondary-prepare-child/ http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/children-parenting-190/primary-school-age-4-11-years- 60/614909-teachers-visit-reception-pupils-homes.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/child_development/toddlers_school.shtml

Related documents from Devon County Council:

Guidance on Sharing Safeguarding Information at Transition for Schools and Education Providers, including Early Years and Childcare Providers http://www.devon.gov.uk/transitionguidance_ey.pdf

Information and correspondence to schools about the single offer point: http://www.devon.gov.uk/sc-dec1046006.pdf http://www.devon.gov.uk/sc-july1126012.pdf http://www.devon.gov.uk/sop_guidance062010.pdf

Fran Butler and Sheena Wright January 2013 7