Transitions between school stages in focus in new study
This collaboration with the municipality will enable a substantial intervention study in which the municipality’s four-year-olds will be followed until they are ten years old. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
How can we create the best possible conditions for all children to succeed at school? It’s a question that engages many people. To help answer it, a study is starting in Uppsala in an area where there is a known knowledge gap: transitions between preschool and school and on to higher stages in the school system.
“We have seen that transitions can be particularly tricky. In the worst case, children who fall behind lose out more and more with each transition. Based on our experiences, we take steps and we try new approaches, but there is no evidence-based method. So research is needed,” says Jan Aili, Head of Preschools at Uppsala Municipality, who is very much looking forward to the research partnership.
The new study will entail a close collaboration between the municipality and Uppsala University through Gustaf Gredebäck, Professor and Director of the Child and Baby Lab. He confirms that there is a lack of research on school transitions, and in fact on preschools in general, despite the general picture that people have – that a person’s difficulties can start early in life and then follow them throughout their childhood. It’s often too late to take action by the time the child reaches secondary school.
Gustaf Gredebäck, Professor and Director of the Child and Baby Lab. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
“We believe we can contribute something important by focusing on transitions between the different types of school, which seems to be a key issue for children’s ongoing development in their schooling,” says Gredebäck.
Children’s strengths in focus
At the Child and Baby Lab, small children’s development is mainly studied in a laboratory environment, but for a long time they have been working to include the preschool, where children spend a lot of time of course, in their research. This collaboration with the municipality will enable a substantial intervention study in which the municipality’s four-year-olds will be followed until they are ten years old. Data from child healthcare services and preschools will be made available to the researchers.
The talks between the researchers and the municipality have been important in identifying the best set-up for the study and the tool that will be developed and tested in it. A vital factor is the study’s starting point: children’s strengths.
“This study will not be about children’s problems. On the contrary, we aim to focus on the positive in each child in the tool that we’re developing. What are the keys that make school transitions work as well as possible for the child? These keys are what we intend should be passed on at a transition point, so that the child’s new teacher does not have to discover them all over again at every step along the way,” says Gredebäck.
Evidence-based method for transitions
He also believes that parents will see the benefits of identifying these keys. It’s probably not uncommon for parents to be a bit sceptical about information transfers in their eagerness to give their child a fresh start at a new school. But here it’s about a handover of keys that open doors.
The hope is that the study will lead to an evidence-based method for transitions between schools, which can then be spread to more levels in the school system and to the entire country. Gustaf Gredebäck believes that the study will also provide interesting new general knowledge about factors that affect children’s development and schooling. So it’s a project where applied research meets basic research.
“For example, something we have seen in the preparations for this study, and which may have theoretical and practical significance further down the road, is that the ability to name body parts at a certain age is linked to a child’s development. But it’s never a single factor that determines how things will go for a child in school, and through our analysis we will be able to produce a kind of multidimensional landscape, with different profiles, that clarifies risk factors. It’s certainly a very exciting project!” says Gustaf Gredebäck.
The project is being funded by Skandia’s Idéer för livet Foundation.
Anneli Waara