Settling in at I3: what it looks like when the family can stay

For a little person of two or three, the world has consisted of their home and a few other spaces, always hand in hand with the people closest to them, with whom they feel safe. Starting school is a big change: a group of peers, spending hours away from their familiar settings and being left in the care of new adults who have no prior relationship with their surroundings.

At Espai Aigua we understand that school should feel like a second home. That is why, and because our low ratios in early years (one reference adult for every 10 children) allow it, we can offer a careful, individualised settling-in process, with no deadline, that takes into account all three parties involved: the child, the family and the reference adults.

The family can stay until everyone feels ready

At Espai Aigua families can accompany their child inside the school for as long as it takes, depending on the circumstances of each case. Before starting, the team gives some guidelines so that the family’s presence does not interfere with the running of the school and so that the process can move forward well. No two settling-in processes are the same and each case needs a different amount of time, attended to individually.

The presence of the reference person gives the child the security to “launch” into life: to discover the space, explore the materials, approach the others and bond with the adults who accompany them. It is a movement the child makes outwards, looking for new things that attract them and that, at the same time, make them wary. When the exploration grows too big, they can return to their safe harbour and process the experience before launching out again.

A process in a spiral

Settling in is not linear. After a big step, it is common for there to be movements that may be read as stalling or going backwards. In reality, this is the natural shape of the process, which tends to follow a spiral path.

Part of the team’s work is to help the family understand this without tension, so as not to get in the way of the path each child makes for themselves. During the days or weeks that settling in may take, the accompanying adults observe and guide all parties, so that it is a gradual and sustainable process for both the child and the family: they take in the worries that arise when “leaving” their child and agree on the first moments of absence, which are planned once a bond with the child already exists, so that the child lets themselves be held when the father or mother begins to leave.

What everyone gains

At every moment we seek the child’s conquest of autonomy, as the protagonist of this process: they are spared a major source of stress at a delicate moment in their emotional development. They stay at school feeling that it is a safe and wanted place, a key starting point for everything that follows.

For its part, the family gets to know the school from the inside: how the adults speak to the little ones, how a conflict is resolved, what happens at the morning meeting… For the child to trust the new space, their family has to trust it, and what better way to check that it is a good place than to be there and see it.

The school also gains its relationship with the family, which is what sustains the project over the following years. These first weeks are where the foundations are laid for a relationship that grows together.

Some frequently asked questions

Can I stay if I work? Many families organise it between two people, or with grandparents, and adjust their hours for the first few weeks. We talk it through before starting to find a way.

And if my child doesn’t cry, do we still need to stay? Every little person is different. Some children move around comfortably from the very first days, and some families feel confident leaving early. The accompaniment adapts to each one.

Can children settle in this way in primary too? Yes. Joining primary from another school also usually needs a settling-in period, and it is also accompanied for as long as it takes, although it tends to be shorter.

If your child is between two and three and you are looking for a school, come and see a morning in early years. We will clear up this and other questions and you will meet the group’s reference adults.