Page 348 - Pedagoška vizija / A Pedagogical Vision

Jurka Lepičnik Vodopivec, Kristina Alviž, and Aleksandra Šindić

Research shows that the perception of preschool teachers and elemen-
tary school teachers about the quality of transitional practice differs in dif-
ferent countries (Urbina-Garcia 2019). Moir and Johnson (2021) point to the
importance of transitions and changes in a child’s daily life, emphasizing the
need for thoughtful planning of the transition from kindergarten to school,
in which different experts who are part of interdisciplinary teams partici-
pate. According to Puccioni, Froiland, and Moeyaert (2020), preschool teach-
ers contribute to this by encouraging parents to cooperate, which supports
the child’s transition to elementary school, which is related to the child’s pos-
itive academic achievement and prosocial behaviour, and negatively related
to behavioural difficulties.
The surveyed preschool teachers and elementary school teachers from
Croatia rate their current transitional practice as average. Although The Na-
tional Curriculum for Early and Preschool Education (Odluka o donošenju na-
cionalnogkurikulumazarani i predškolski odgoji obrazovanje2015) provides
guidelines for quality transitional practice and school programmes provide
the child with an additional opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and
resilience (Došen-Dobud 2001), the obtained results indicate that the current
practice is far from ideal.
The findings of the research indicate the fact that both preschool teachers
and elementary school teachers agree to a very large extent that their mu-
tual cooperation is necessary during the child’s transition from kindergarten
to elementary school. This indicates that the main participants in these pro-
cesses are aware of the significance of their role, given that their cooperation
is key to facilitating the transition process and supporting the child’s devel-
opment (Pianta et al. 1999; Prelogović 2005) and ensures the quality of tran-
sitional practices (Dockett and Perry 2007; Visković 2018). In other words, the
obtained findings suggest that preschool teachers and elementary school
teachers should improve the transitional practice that they characterized as
average in quality through richer and more successful cooperation, through
the creation of a stimulating environment for the realization of quality transi-
tional practices (Esping-Andersen 2009), which would contribute to empow-
ering children and making it easier for them to cope with new challenges
(Dockett and Perry 2007).
The research results of Puccioni, Froiland, and Moeyaert (2020) highlight
the importance of ensuring a quality transition from family to kindergarten
through the use of transition practices that support collaboration with par-
ents and create uninterrupted continuity between home and kindergarten,
and later with school.

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