A welcoming classroom helps children approach a new beginning with confidence.

Having worked across international education systems, I have seen how much attention schools give to curriculum, assessment, and student support. Transitions can expose the gaps between those systems.

From Handover Records to Classroom Support

Consider this hypothetical scenario. A school leader notices that handover records capture attainment but overlook the approaches that help students learn. The leader schedules teacher conversations informed by students’ and families’ priorities. For one learner, the team agrees on a named adult, an advance classroom visit, and timetable practice. At a two-week review, they ask whether the student knows whom to approach and whether mornings feel more manageable at home. If difficulties remain, the team adjusts the plan. The leader ensures each action has an owner and that support reaches the classroom.

To make this kind of coordination routine, I propose five stages: Prepare, Connect, Support, Monitor, and Review. This proposed framework draws on transition research and offers a practical structure for school teams, but it has not been evaluated as a complete program.

Transitions Are More Than Administrative Events

Beatson et al. (2023) reviewed 26 studies of interventions supporting the move from Primary to Secondary. Most interventions improved at least one relevant outcome, but the authors called for stronger evaluation and replication across educational contexts.

Snozzi (2026) examined a different transition: movement between mainstream and special education placements. Across 23 studies, transitions were often stressful, and findings pointed to the value of adapting environments and supporting skills. Most studies were small and qualitative, so these findings should guide thoughtful planning rather than promises of success.

A Five-Stage Framework for Inclusive Transitions

Use the stages as a repeating cycle: what a school learns during Review should shape how it prepares for the next transition. The process stays consistent while the support responds to each learner.

1. Prepare: Start Before the Transition

For younger learners, preparation can include classroom visits, photographs of new teachers, visual schedules, and practice with unfamiliar routines.

For students entering Secondary, rehearse the timetable, explore the campus, introduce a peer mentor, and discuss growing independence. Ask students what they are looking forward to and what worries them.

For international arrivals, including mid-year admissions, check language needs, previous curriculum coverage, and opportunities to make friend

Finding their way together: peer support during the move to Secondary.

2. Connect: Make Every Handover Meaningful

Assessment results tell only part of a student’s story. Receiving teachers also need to know their interests, communication preferences, successful strategies, and agreed adjustments.

Then and Pohlmann-Rother (2024), drawing on interviews with 22 preschool educators, identified communication, coordination of support, and joint professional learning as dimensions of cooperation around school entry for children with disabilities.

Set aside time for the sending teacher, receiving teacher, and relevant specialists to talk. A short, useful learning profile should support that conversation.

What does the next teacher need to know to help this student succeed from day one?

3. Support: Build Partnerships With Families

Families know what creates anxiety and which routines help their child feel secure. Students should also help identify the support they want.

In interviews with six parents and seven kindergarten teachers, Sands and Meadan (2024) found that limited communication, late teacher assignments, and differences between settings complicated transitions for children with disabilities.

Agree on early support, identify a named contact, and offer interpretation when needed. Use visual schedules, familiarisation visits, or adult assistance as needed, and review them as confidence and independence develop.

4. Monitor: Look Beyond Academic Performance

A student can complete assignments while feeling isolated. During the first weeks, ask about friendships, routines, safety, and where to find help.

Bring student and family feedback together with attendance, participation, and learning evidence. Identify who will follow up on concerns and when. Good marks alone do not show that a transition has gone well.

5. Review: Evaluate What Actually Worked

Check whether agreed adjustments actually happened and whether they helped. A useful starting point is a review after two weeks and again after six, adapted to the learner; these are suggested checkpoints, not research-established deadlines.

Include students, families, teachers, and support staff. Change what is not working, record responsibilities, and use the lessons to improve the next transition.

International Schools Face Additional Challenges

An international move may bring a new country, language, curriculum, and set of cultural expectations at once. Explain unfamiliar school routines and invite families to share how support worked previously.

Don't automatically treat difficulty with a new language or curriculum as a learning disability. Equally, language differences must not obscure additional needs. Build a picture of the learner across languages and settings, using family knowledge and appropriate specialist input.

Leadership Makes the Difference

Leaders must make this work possible through protected handover time, clear responsibilities, staff development, and access to support.