ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1654090
Effective Actions to Support Transition: Exploring the Experience of Public Schools in Chile
Provisionally accepted
Daniela Sofía Jadue-Roa1,2,3*
David Maximiliano Gómez1,4,5
Mayer Soto-Sarmiento6Thierry Amigo- López7
Rebekah Lorraine Grace2- 1Institute of Educational Sciences, Universidad de O'Higgins, Rancagua, Chile
- 2Transforming early Education And Child Health Research Centre (TeEACH), Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
- 3Centro de Investigación Avcanzada en Educación (CIAE), Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 4Millenium Nucleus for the Study of the Development of Early Maths Skills (MEMAT), Santiago, Chile
- 5Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Educación (CIAE), Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 6Instituto de Estudios Avanzados en Educación, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- 7Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study aimed to explore the nature of the technical-pedagogical support provided by Public Education Local Services in Chile for implementing Decree 373, as perceived by school leaders and teachers. It examined how this collaboration facilitated the design and implementation of effective actions to support the successful progression of children from kindergarten to first grade. Previous work in the field of transition suggests that effective transition programmes consider the perspectives of all actors—children, families, and practitioners—and are more likely to succeed when there are positive leaders within both the management and pedagogical teams. This study focused on the perspectives of practitioners and management teams within five different public schools, employing a multiple case study design and a mixed-methods approach with a predominantly qualitative focus. Data was collected through a questionnaire comprising both closed-ended and open-ended questions. Findings show that the implementation of this Decree is still in its initial stages and faces challenges due to the new structure within the public education system. Furthermore, in terms of leadership, the study highlights the need to adopt more horizontal and democratic forms of leadership both within the system and in individual schools. Educators and teachers report being motivated to work collaboratively and wanting to be included in future initiatives. The experiences of these school staff members provide meaningful insights into how to advance the implementation of the public education system in partnership with schools.
Keywords: early childhood education, Transition to school, Leadership, public education, Transition strategy, Chile, Primary school education
Received: 25 Jun 2025; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jadue-Roa, Gómez, Soto-Sarmiento, Amigo- López and Grace. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Daniela Sofía Jadue-Roa, d.jadueroa@westernsydney.edu.au
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.