Transitions

There are many online resources offering advice on supporting care-experienced children and young people during transitions.

This toolkit summarises common transition issues and provides guidance for those supporting them. It includes practical strategies and links to useful organisations and materials.

The suggested ideas and strategies should be adapted for different ages, situations, and levels of understanding. However, the core principles of support remain the same. Where specific considerations apply to certain transition points, these are clearly highlighted.

Transition is not only about major life changes. It also happens daily—moving between tasks, rooms, home and school, indoors and outdoors, or classroom and break time. As children grow from infancy to adulthood, they experience many transitions: home to nursery, school, secondary, college, and beyond. These changes can be challenging for anyone, but they are often even harder for children and young people who have lived in care.

Change can be difficult for children and young people who are in care or have been in care. Early trauma and insecure attachments often mean they do not feel that change is safe. A sense of security is needed before change can feel manageable. Many care-experienced children have faced frequent, often negative, changes, so any new transition can trigger fear and anxiety. Supporting them through these transitions is essential to help build stability.

Even small changes can feel significant—a new school, class, staff member, task, or game. Ending an enjoyable activity can also cause worry, as they may fear they will never experience it again. Everyday life involves constant change: new school years, moving to secondary or college, or changing homes. For vulnerable children, these normal changes can be overwhelming.

During transitions, care-experienced children may struggle to regulate emotions and behaviour. They might become upset, excitable, clingy, overly helpful, or controlling as they seek safety and reassurance. They may ask lots of questions or chatter excessively to feel noticed. Other issues can also surface, such as eating difficulties, sleep problems, soiling, or risky behaviours like substance misuse, self-harm, or vulnerability to exploitation. Some children may show no outward signs but work hard to hide their anxiety.

School days are packed with activities and frequent transitions. For children and young people who have experienced trauma or loss, these changes can feel overwhelming, and they often struggle to keep up with the fast pace expected.

Effective preparation is key. This means providing extra prompts and reminders, clearly explaining what is coming next, and allowing additional time for the child to process the change before moving on. This helps them feel secure and ready for the next learning opportunity.

Reflective time is also important. It gives children a chance to think about what they’ve achieved, process their experiences, and explore specific transitions or journeys to build understanding and confidence.

It is vital that information is shared to support all transitions.

Staff should consider individual needs to allow time for processing transitions. Does the child or young person need to finish something early to provide necessary transition time or perhaps they may need a higher level of warnings before an activity or task ceases? How does the individual child communicate anxiety or fear through their behaviour? For some children this may be increasingly noticeable behaviour whilst others may withdraw – distress presents differently in different children.

Staff must differentiate expectations for transitions and should offer individualised resources (visual cues, adult prompts, checklists…).

All staff need to understand attachment and trauma; training should be put in place to ensure this. Staff need to understand how early adverse childhood experiences impact on behaviour and learning and how this may present in an educational setting. Staff need to be aware of triggers and sensitive issues specific to individual children, this may include information they wish to share about experiences prior to care, including positive experiences they might have had.

Strategies and Considerations to Support Transition into an Early Years Placement: 

• Home visits
• Visits to nursery/pre-school with parents/carers
• Support separation from carer into setting
• Phased entry including access to quieter sessions or visits outside of hours to ensure familiarisation with environment
• Photobook with relevant staff pictures, photos of activities and areas in setting
• Attachment and trauma training for staff
• All staff aware of sensitive issues
• Pen portrait/all about me drawn up with social worker and carers
• Staff to be aware of people important to child and know names, relationships, dynamics…
• Specific resources provided in line with child’s interests
• Transitional objects bought into setting/taken home
• Activities offered in line with emotional as well as chronological age
• Designated person to have attended relevant training

The Transition from Early Years to Primary School: 

• Attachment and trauma training for staff including office staff, mid-day meal supervisors and other relevant support staff
• Transition visits into new school, child to be accompanied by a familiar adult and sample various sessions including structured lessons, assembly, lunch and play
• Home visits
• Early years setting to keep the journey into school visible through resources and discussion in the setting
• Transition pack to be developed for the child, including photos and an “all about my new school” booklet
• Transition planning meeting with foster carers, social worker and virtual school
• New school to visit child in existing setting
• Focus on learning to learn behaviours, for example listening to teacher, adult directed tasks, sitting for longer periods etc.
• Teaching policies, objectives and outcomes shared with carers, for example phonics and calculations policies
• If appropriate, plan an extended transition period

The Transition from Primary School to Secondary School:

• Consider an enhanced transition package and participation in summer school
• Provide a map of the new school building, colour code subjects and classrooms, highlight important areas eg. dining hall/canteen, locker, hall, sport’s changing rooms
• Consider and practice the journey to and from school
• Make the timetable easy to use for the individual
• Photobook with relevant staff pictures, photos of activities and visual cues
• Create daily checklists so that the correct items are taken to/from school
• Create a user friendly diary for organising homework
• Set up a ‘buddy system’ with a designated older student/peer/group to help the individual move between classes
• Assign a member of staff as a ‘mentor’ and identify a place of safety which can be sought in times of crisis/anxiety
• Plan a consistent approach between lessons including a ‘script’ which is used by all staff in times of crisis/anxiety
• Ensure all members of staff are familiar with individual needs and considerations. Consider a pupil passport or profile.
• Consider procedures and extra-curricular opportunities for unstructured times and identify good role models and ‘safe’ peers and places who will offer support at these times
• Pre-teach new vocabulary including: form, head of year, resource centre, subject specific vocabulary
• Identify a system of home-school liaison
• Ensure thorough information sharing, secondary school to attend final PEP in Year 6 as a minimum
• Listen to pupil voice and be responsive to this, including the pupil’s view on the sharing of their care status and any script which needs developing

The Transition from Secondary School to Post-16 Options:

• Visit settings well in advance to support informed decisions (including open days and taster days)
• Tutors should be prepared to meet the student before the course to discuss any concerns and requirements
• Consider opportunities to manage extended summer holidays including NCS in order to maintain motivation
• Provide a map of the new building
• Make the timetable easy to use for the individual and support young people to manage changes to this as they arise
• Continue to support and expect a high level of carer involvement to ensure success
• Support the student to access libraries, resource centres and online profiles
• Assign a member of staff as a ‘mentor’ and identify a place of safety which can be sought in times of crisis/anxiety
• Ensure student is aware of student services
• Practice the journey to and from college
• Provide support in accessing grants and bursaries
• Support to manage time outside of structured college timetables
• Listen to the young person’s voice and be responsive to this, including the young person’s view on the sharing of their care status and any script which needs developing
• Be aware that this may coincide with a possible move into semi-independent living for the young person

The Transition into Higher Education:

• Provide opportunities to attend open days
• Support completion of UCAS process
• What support can be offered 52 weeks a year, including year round accommodation
• Provide support in accessing grants and bursaries
• Ensure awareness of student support services
• Support management of timetable and strategies to maintain motivation and independent study
• For further information, please refer to ‘Higher Education Guide for Cambridgeshire Care Leavers’ - ARU - Children in Care and Care Leavers Booklet 2020/2021

Specific Considerations for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC): 

• Be aware of stage of English language development and cultural differences
• Acknowledge the journey which the young person may have undertaken and trauma linked to and arising from this
• Be prepared to invest additional time developing and acknowledging the young person’s history and previous experiences
• Maintain high expectations and explore extent and range of prior learning to ensure suitability of courses
• Recognise anxiety around immigration processes

Both school and home life can involve many changes and transitions—moving between activities, leaving the house, or adjusting to new routines. For children and young people who have experienced trauma or loss, these changes can feel overwhelming, and they may struggle to cope without extra support.

Preparation is essential. Offer clear explanations about what will happen next, give plenty of notice, and use reminders to help the child feel secure. Allow extra time for them to process changes before moving on, as this can reduce anxiety and build confidence.

Reflection is also important. Create opportunities for the child to talk about what they’ve done, how they felt, and what’s coming next. This helps them make sense of their experiences and feel more in control during times of change.

Liaise with school, nursery and college:

• Have regular communication between home and school so that care planning updates, sensitive issues, individual needs etc. can be shared
• Be aware of specific homework policies and expectations
• Ensure that you are registered to receive emails and can access online assessment/homework sites
• Be aware of all meetings (including PEPs) and attend all relevant school events
• Familiarise your child with new uniform, school bag, equipment
• Practice the journey if possible
• Establish a homework routine/system for meeting deadlines
• Maintain strong links with social workers and the virtual school

(Source: ‘What About Me?’ Louise Michelle Bomber)

Visual cues

There are a variety of visual timers which can be used in schools and settings, such as:

• Gel timers
• Sand timers
• Diaries and calendars
• Visual timetables
• Mobile phone timers
• Online calendars

Sometimes verbal cues are not enough, and visual or tangible cues are much more relevant, just as we would use with much younger children. Many of these children and young people have little concept of time and need an opportunity to ‘feel’ what time feels like.

Checklists

Checklists can be created to help prepare for transition. Checklists break down complex tasks that involve many expectations into simpler chunks that are clear and straightforward to follow. A simple list can mean that the children and young people is less likely to feel overwhelmed and make even difficult tasks bearable. Checklists teach the brain how organisation works so that transitions can be made successfully.

Memory cards

Memory cards are very supportive in terms of helping children and young people to ‘hold on’ or ‘wait’, so that they can temporarily come away from something that they might be in the middle of. Many children and young people will find it extremely hard to stop mid-flow. Not all lesson timings will allow for completion of work in one sitting. So we need to prepare for this possibility with some supportive scaffolding.

Transitional Objects

Transitional objects are objects which are taken from home into the setting and reinforce to the child that they will therefore be going back to that home. This object may have a specific smell or belong to an important person or be a photograph. Similarly, children can take items from school home, including class pets and photographs, to reinforce to them that they will be returning to school and not moving on.

Pupil profiles/passports

Profiles and passports are summary documents about a child and preferably they are contained on one page. They are a very child centred approach and in fact should be created with the majority of input coming from the child themselves, hence promoting pupil voice. They enable key information about the individual’s needs to be shared with all staff (including cover staff, offering a summary of need and strategies which are effective as well as sharing strengths).

Further examples of one page profiles can be found at: https://sheffkids.co.uk/resources/

SEAL Resources

Within the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning themes, ‘New Beginnings’ and ‘Changes’ tackle the issue of transition and change in order to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common human responses to it. The themes seek to develop children and young people’s ability to understand and manage the feelings associated with change and to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: motivation, social skills and managing feelings.

Further resources can be found at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110812101121tf_/http://nsonline.org.uk/node/87009

Exercises to Help Young People Think About the Process of Saying Goodbye and Transitions (Source: PAC-UK)

The Who and the How 

Together with the child, make a list with two columns headed ‘who’ and ‘how’, Help the child to identify who they need to say goodbye to, and how they will do it e.g. making a card for the class teacher.

This can be adapted to think about who the child would like to stay in touch with, and how they might do this with different people; staying in touch reinforces the message that the child exists to the person even when they no longer meet every day.

A Big Enough Heart 

Help the child to identify the people they like and love in the school or family they will be moving on from. Note those people down. Draw a large heart which encompasses these people but still has lots of space. This can illustrate to the child that they can carry people with them in their heart, and still have space for the people they will be building relationships with at their next school or family.

The Bridge 

Sketch out the context (school or family) which the child is leaving, and the one the child will be joining. Draw a bridge which links the two, and position the child on the bridge. This provides a way to talk about the move, and the feelings (e.g. excitement and anxiety) which come with being ‘in between’, particularly in the long school holidays.

Bag of Feelings 

With the child, draw a bag: If you had a bag with all your feelings in it about moving school, what would it look like? What feelings would be inside? How big would the happy/sad/scared part be?

Story Books

There are a variety of story books available to support children who are experiencing or have experienced care which are relevant for transition.

Further resources can be found at https://incentiveplus.co.uk/ and https://www.adoptionuk.org/