International Symposium for Innovative Practices, Policy Makers and Stakeholders – Transitions: making schools ready for young children and families

International symposium was held as the final event in the START project. Under the leadership of the Belgian partner VBJK, the consortium organised the event in Brussels, in the premises of the Flemish Government.

Around 90 preschool and primary school professionals, policy makers and other interested stakeholders attended the symposium, where partners presented the project, its intellectual outputs and final results on the topic of transitions across the home environment, early childhood services and primary schools, which was researched in the framework of the project. All results are available here: http://start.pei.si/results/.

We were pleased to have the opportunity to listen to policy makers from different countries: representative of the European Commision, Ms. Geraldine Libreau, Ms. Sara De Meerlee, Leen Ardui, and Filip Winderickx from Belgium, Ms. Francesca Puglisi from Italy and Ms. Brigita Mark from Slovenia. The panel was facilitated by Prof. Dr. ichel Vandenbroeck from the University of Ghent.

In the afternoon, researchers and practitioners from partner institutions held round tables, where they discussed their work in their pilots in each country.