Four‐year‐old Children in Reception Classrooms: participant perceptions and practice

Abstract

Abstract There continues to be an increasing number of four‐year‐old children in reception classrooms in the UK. The child‐school incorporation process is a dynamic, multifaceted, interactive and poorly understood phenomenon. This paper summarises the pilot stage of a project that investigated this critical period in the life histories of a group of children. The project viewed the researcher, teacher, parent and child as collaborators in an illuminative process. There is a need to challenge the notion that the child simply ‘adjusts’ to school. Children are most likely to be under stress during the first weeks of school when the reduplicated rites of separation, transition and incorporation are going on. Appropriate changes and real improvements in policy, provision and practice need to be based upon a cognizance of the lived experiences of these rites for all the participants.