RECENT AUSTRALIAN REFORMS IN early childhood education have incorporated a focus on strengths-based practices. These practices have been supported in a range of professional resources and professional development. Despite this, there has been limited interrogation of the ways in which strengths-based practice is interpreted and employed by educators. This paper reports an investigation of prior-to-school and school educators' references to strengthsbased practices in their communication with each other as children made the transition to school. To assist in the analysis of this communication, we draw on a categorisation of strengths-based practices developed from analysis of cross-disciplinary research literature. Three categories of strengths-based practices-derived from the fields of positive psychology, social work and organisational practice-provide the theoretical framework for analysis of this communication data. Data reported in this paper were contributed by 22 educators as part of a broader investigation of preschool-school communication around children's transition to school. Secondary analysis of a subset of data, including questionnaire responses, interviews and documents that referred to strengths-based practices, were analysed. Results indicate that educators interpreted strengths-based practice as the sharing of positive information about children. We argue that this positive psychology approach presents a limited view of strengths-based practice and suggest that the organisational practice category offers the potential to communicate about children's strengths, as well as the challenges they may face, as they start school.

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RECENT REFORMS IN AUSTRALIA have brought an increasing expectation on early childhood educators to work together across settings at times of children's transition. In particular, the transition to school has been identified as an important time when educators are required to collaborate in order to support children, families and communities. Written forms of communication have been encouraged, and in some cases mandated, as a basis for transferring information about children from preschools to schools. The premise of such initiatives is that the information will enhance children's transitions by assisting schools to build on children's prior experiences. However, there has been little research into the practice of preschool–school communication including issues that impact on it. This article reports the challenges preschool and school educators identified in using written channels to transfer information between settings. The results indicate that written communication can be problematic. Several issues are identified that shape written communication practices and limit their effectiveness as a support for children and as a means of developing positive relationships between settings.