A Meeting of the Minds?

I have  a particular interest in building up a relationship with the preschools in our area and in working together to help make the transition to school as seamless as possible.  I believe the sharing of information and open communication can only help all parties involved in this important milestone.
So .... I was lucky enough to have the opportunity in term one to visit many of the preshools in our area and I had mentioned to them that I thought some sort of "Networking meeting" would be a good idea.
 I thought that we needed to have a focus because then the teachers could easily justify their time.
In the school holidays I revisited many of these centers again and personally invited them to attend a "get together" with a focus on sharing a great thing that they do as a center to prepare their children for school.
We had our first meeting on Wednesday which was great.  About 14 of us gathered at our school and we introduced ourselves and shared what our experience was in teaching and where we were from.  We then had a sharing session about something that we do in our center/school to help best prepare children for school.  This was a valuable exercise and there were different ideas including attending school visits with the children, sending booklets home to parents explaining about what they can do to help parents assist with the transition.  One center focused on helping children pack their own bag at the end of the day.  One centre was encouraging  the use of lunchboxes etc.  The list goes on.
The good thing was that all the centers are on board and realise that the communication between school and preschool is vital for a smooth transition to school.
It was clear that a lot of the centres are only teaching alphabet and how to write their name etc if a child shows an interest.  If they do not show an interest in learning these skills, they don't enforce it.
While I respect that this is the philosophy of many ECE's, the fact remains that children have a lot to learn in order to meet national standard expectations.  I am left pondering how to feel about this.  I want to read more in this area and shape my opinion based on research, rather than my gut instinct.
We also did an exercise where we discussed and recorded our ideas about what skills we think children should have in order to be school ready.  This was also a valuable exercise and I will share this with the preschools.
We finished with a quick tour of our new buildings which was good and reaped some positive feedback.
The next meeting has been scheduled for Term 4 at one of the preschools which sounds promising.  At the very least, this has been a good opportunity to meet the teachers and show we value the relationship between school and preschool.  At best, we have had the first of many gatherings which will foster a fabulous relationship with and between the preschools.  At the end of the day, we all have a common goal- to make the transition from the preschool setting to the school setting as seamless and as smooth as possible.    Watch this space!