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Crossing Borders: A Community Negotiates Transition from Early Childhood to Primary School Carol Hartley, Pat Rogers, Jemma Smith, Sally Peters and Margaret Carr. Wellington, NZ: NZCER Press. 2012. ISBN 978-1-927151-47-1. e-book available from www.nzcer.org.nz/ nzcerpress
Successful transition to primary school is central to recent Ministry of Education (MoE) policy initiatives. In a climate where policy-makers seek to benchmark school entry, using Literacy Learning Progressions (MoE, 2010), this book provides timely access to current complexities and continuities in transition to school. Shared purpose and mutual endeavours across sectors and between families and teachers are key findings emerging from the Mangere Bridge Kindergarten Centre of Innovation (COI) action research project, conducted between 2006 and 2008.
Head teacher (lead researcher), Carol Hartley, brings her knowledge and experience of working in Mangere. She is supported by Pat Rogers and Jemma Smith. University of Waikato researchers, Associate-Professor Sally Peters, and Professor Margaret Carr, complete the research-teacher partnership Together the writers illuminate Wenger's (1998) view that learning takes place in communities of practice and that "new practices" are generated "out of the negotiation of meaning" (p. 65). The authors explore and theorize the rich resources families, children and teachers bring to "bridges" for "border crossings" between early childhood centre and school. Transition to school is shown to be a community endeavour.
Challenges to the discourses and cultures of each sector emerge as the authors uncover key boundaries for negotiating the borders between ECE centres and schools, between sector languages and...