The transition from early childhood education to primary school is highlighted by international literature as a critical period for children with a determinant impact on their success in school. During the transition phase the pupils experience and should cope with a series of changes that often become challenges. The changes are related to the primary school structure, the settings of the primary school classrooms and the relationships with peers and teachers, all being different from those in kindergartens, to which they are accustomed. The latter changes often result in generating stress to pupils and if they do not acquire adjustment and negotiation skills to confront the new school reality this could also result in denial and school failure. Also, a negative transition experience could at a later stage lead to dropout of education and to a respective incapability to adapt to new situations in future life experiences.

Given the importance and the severe impact of this phase on future school success and even on the dropout rates, the project aims to address the defined need of an holistic and cooperative educational approach that will support pupils' smooth transition to primary school. The project aims are in line with the Council Recommendation on high quality early
childhood education and care (2019/C 189/02) and specifically with the priorities to:
a) promote further integration of early childhood education and care in the education continuum, b) foster collaboration between early childhood education and care and primary school staff, parents for a smooth transition to primary school.

The general objective of the UPSTAIRS project is to undertake research and collaborative work to create methodologies, tools and e-learning materials that will allow children of the pre-school education develop the required skills and the members of the school communities to assist them in doing so, transforming their transition to primary school from a stressful period to a creative one resulting in happy, confident and collaborative children

Specific UPSTAIRS project objectives and the respective previewed results are following:
- To support childrens’ readiness for facing challenges related to their going to primary school. The associated project result will be a structured Framework, with guidelines to be followed by pre- primary staff to support the transition, aiming at each child’s emotional well-being and at the cultivation of adaptation, independence and resilience skills of children.
- To bridge the two different steps of education (pre-school and school) making the transition natural and easy. For this the project previews the development of an innovative transitional curriculum. To achieve this the project previews collaboration and active participation of primary school staff that will interlink pre- primary and primary education settings and pedagogy fostering continuity of educational levels.
- To ensure the involvement of all members of the pre-school and primary school communities in the effort to ensure a smooth transition from kindergarten to the first grade of primary education.

To this end, the UPSTAIRS project will develop a common collaborative space between pre-primary, primary staff and parents to support transition and special requirements for disadvantaged children aiming at developing child-centric collaborative transition support that will provide the children with the necessary skills to confront the new environment.
- To use facilities of the digital world, in order to open up a cooperation facility. The project result to fulfill this objective will be a digital common space that will facilitate cooperation between the target groups and will incorporate a repository of activities, tips and supporting material for school staff and for the parents.
Through their description as well as that of the project results, it is obvious that they serve the provision of high-quality early childhood education, of inclusion and diversity of pupils as well as the development of a series of basic and key competences for children to pass on to the primary school.