Continuity In Education

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The concept of “continuity” has two facets. First, it denotes the consistency of children's experience across educational settings as they move from grade to grade. Viewed in this way, the vertical continuity of high-quality learning experiences for children over time includes the alignment of learning expectations; curricula; and other instructional strategies, assessments, and learning environments to ensure that they are coherent with each other and grounded in best practices in instruction and other professional responsibilities (McMillan, 2001). With this continuity, early achievements prepare for and are built upon by later ones.
Secondly, continuity refers to how well content, outcomes, or objectives are common across a given grade
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Bridging activities designed to ease transitions can support and sustain the growth of children's competencies across developmental domains (Bornfreund et al., 2014; Tout et al., 2013). Bridging activities employed within settings or classrooms include having mixed-age classrooms or having an educator move with a group of students for multiple years—for example, to teach the same class of children from kindergarten through second grade before starting again with a new class. The success of these approaches will depend on the availability of educators employing a high quality of professional practice, to avoid a cumulative negative effect of children experiencing consecutive years of a low-quality learning environment rather than the desired continuity of a high-quality learning environment.
Across settings, bridging activities might include developing partnerships across grade levels. Policies and practices such as standardized forms and processes across settings and age/grade levels and aligned standards, curricula, teaching practices, and assessments can facilitate transitions as well (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2013; Kauerz and Coffman, 2013). Additional bridging activities and supports are needed for children who are receiving supplemental support services—for example, children
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Teachers who use developmental continuity or progress maps in their classrooms understand that not all students progress through an area of learning in exactly the same way or at the same rate. Students have different interests, motivations and learning styles, and these differences influence what and how they learn. But teachers also understand that, in most areas of school learning, there are common paths of development, making it possible to talk about one student being at a ‘more advanced’ stage in their learning than another, and allowing levels of student achievement to be compared and monitored over time (McMillen,