It is with great joy that we welcome our children back to activities after the July vacation period. The return to school routine is always a special moment, both for children and for us educators. In this context, we recognize the importance of welcoming, especially for those children who are taking their first steps away from home.

Starting school is a process filled with concerns, anxieties and expectations for families and also for educators who are anxiously awaiting each of these children. It marks the transition from a known space to an unknown, different and collective space. It is necessary that families and schools get to know each other and can, therefore, begin to establish a relationship of trust.

Doubts about how they will take care of the child in a group with other children appear, as well as insecurities and concerns. This happens because families want, with good reason, that their children are cared for and supported with affection and affection and that they can be attended to in the best possible way. The choice of school is a decision that involves the child, but which is made by the adults responsible for them.

In other words, children are officially taking their first steps into the world when they start attending school, starting to separate from their first relationships. Even though the space is collective, families expect that each child is supported in their individuality, which justifies the concerns and anxieties. After all, which family hasn’t asked the famous question “Are they taking good care of my child?”

Taking individualities into account also means that behaviors in the face of the unknown are diverse. Some children cry, others lean on the game, others rely on their mothers and still other children want to discover every corner of the new space.

It is necessary to offer time so that the children can, little by little, feel comfortable and safe in the new space, with other adults and with the new routine, giving them the certainty that the families will always come back to pick them up.

Over so many years we have lived alongside many families, the anxieties and insecurities of the long-awaited first time at school and we can guarantee that there is no ready-made instruction for the countless situations or behaviors that arise.

We do not want, as educators, that the child molds to the institution, but that he/she is truly welcomed. For this to happen, the school needs to welcome the family, which is part of the child’s life. That the families observe the children’s actions in the new space, how they are acting and accepting the approach of other adults. That they are informed about the functioning of the transition period at the chosen school. Make room for the new, which can also be pleasant and interesting and, above all, trust in the choice you have made.

At Infanzia, the reception period is carefully thought out and planned with the family and school management. Families accompany the first days of their children with professionals. Gradually, and based on the response of each child, families say goodbye to their children.

Welcoming has to do with the attitude of acceptance and hospitality that we can have towards each other. Therefore, it is not necessarily a natural process, but something to be built by everyone who works in the school system (teachers, students, employees, parents). A robust and lasting construction must be founded on firm ground, where they are concrete: respect, trust, delicacy, affection and knowledge.

And dialogue, always.