The Handbook of Transitions Big and Small

The Handbook of Transitions brings together in one book some of the key passages on change and transitions from Louise Michelle Bombèr’s best loved writing, updated for today’s demands and uncertainties.  So that when you are thinking about transitions a child or young person may be facing, or if you have recognised that a child or young person you know is generally struggling with transitions at the moment, you’ll readily find thoughts and ideas to help you.  Themes include the need for a deep sense of felt safety, through access to consistent, reliable, empathic adults, and a safe base: structure, issues such as power, choice and control, timing, transitional objects and rituals, interruptions, moving school, handling exclusions, and much more.  You’ll also find thoughts around what these pupils need from the adults around them to support them to navigate transitions.

Andrea Perry’s introduction and additional annotation around Louise’s writing highlights the significance of her often prescient thinking and suggestions in the light of social change over the last decade or so, which have created additional challenges for our already vulnerable children and young people.  Indeed, current government policy focuses strongly on the transition from primary to secondary schooling emphasizing the need to manage that change empathetically and retain inclusion in mainstream education.

For nearly 20 years, Louise Michelle Bombèr has consistently provided informed, thoughtful and inspiring writing full of innovative, practice-evidenced and practical ideas for educators, parents and carers who face challenges in schools.  In her many books she has written about transitions in school from many angles, drawing on biology, neuroscience, attachment aware, trauma responsive approaches and her extensive frontline experience of working with children and young people.  

The capacity we develop as children to cope with transitions lays the foundation for our ability to cope with change and transition in the future.  Some children and young people in our schools today find transitions extremely difficult, whether that involves coming into school each morning, or even coming into school at all.  In school there are transitions throughout the day, different subjects, different people, different styles of learning, different kit needed - together with the huge transition from primary to secondary.  This transition may be of particular concern to families where a child...read more...