The preschool records worth passing on to a primary school are a short transition summary written by your child's teacher, the last one or two formal reports, a few samples of drawing and early writing, the attendance letter, and any specialist or health information the new school needs to keep your child safe and supported. A full learning journal or app feed is better kept by the family than handed over: primary teachers rarely have time to read it, and it often contains photos of other children.
Families who move between schools and countries tend to collect a lot of paper and a lot of digital material. Much of it is precious to the family and of limited use to the next teacher. The skill is in choosing what helps a stranger understand your child quickly, and in keeping the rest safe for your own sake. This guide sorts the records, explains how a primary teacher actually uses them, and covers the questions of privacy and sensitive information that parents often find hardest.
Which records to keep, and which to pass on
Most preschool material falls into a handful of types. The middle column describes what a primary teacher uses it for, which is the best guide to whether it is worth sending.
| Record | What the next teacher does with it | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| End-of-year or termly report | Reads it to understand your child's strengths, languages and social skills | Pass on the most recent one or two |
| Transition summary from the preschool teacher | Uses it to plan the first weeks and pair your child with classmates | Request one and pass it on |
| Learning journal, portfolio or app feed | Rarely has time to read it in full | Keep it; share a few highlights if useful |
| Samples of drawing and early writing | Gets a quick sense of fine motor skills and early literacy | Pass on three or four recent pieces |
| Attendance letter with dates | Confirms where your child was and for how long, mostly for the school file | Pass on |
| Health information and allergy plans | Keeps your child safe from the first day | Pass on, updated |
| Speech, occupational therapy or psychology reports | Plans support and avoids repeating assessments | Pass on a recent summary; discuss the full report in a meeting |
| Photos and videos | None, at school | Keep for the family |
Notice the pattern. What travels best is short, recent and written for a teacher. What is best kept at home is long, sentimental, or about other children as well as yours.
If you are unsure about an item, imagine the new teacher in the week before term, with a class list, a stack of files and a planning meeting the next morning. Anything that helps them greet your child well on the first day belongs in the file. Anything that would take an evening to read, and would not change how they greet your child, can wait for a later conversation if it is ever needed.
Learning journals and learning stories: what they are for
Many preschools document children's learning through observations, photos and short narratives. In New Zealand, the educationalist Margaret Carr developed the learning story approach, in which teachers write short accounts of a moment of learning, what the child did and what it shows about their dispositions such as curiosity or persistence. In England, settings following the Early Years Foundation Stage often keep a learning journal of observations against areas of development. Bilingual preschools in Ho Chi Minh City use various versions of these, often delivered through a parent app.
These records were designed for a specific purpose: helping the preschool teacher plan the next step for your child, and helping you see your child's learning. They are rich, personal and often lovely, but they are not written for a reader who has never met your child and has thirty new pupils to get to know in a week. A primary teacher looking for the essentials will struggle to find them in two hundred entries.
So treat the journal as a family archive. Download or save it before your access ends, since app accounts are usually closed when a child leaves. If there are two or three entries that capture something important about how your child learns, such as their absorption in building or their care for younger children, print those and attach them to the summary. That small selection says more than the whole file.
What a good transition summary contains
The single most useful document you can give a primary teacher is a one- or two-page summary from the person who taught your child in the final preschool year. Ask for it a few weeks before the end of the year, and suggest it covers the following.
- Languages: which languages your child understands and speaks, with whom, and which one they turn to when tired or upset.
- How your child learns: what holds their attention, how they approach something new, whether they prefer to watch first or jump in.
- Friendships and play: who they play with, whether they lead or follow, how they handle conflict.
- Self-care: independence with toileting, eating, dressing and managing belongings.
- Early literacy and number: interest in books, recognising their name, counting, drawing and early writing, described rather than scored.
- What helps: strategies that work when your child is anxious, frustrated or overexcited.
- Any concerns: anything the teacher has noticed and shared with you, and what was done about it.
A summary written this way is much more useful than a list of skills ticked off. It gives the new teacher a picture of a particular child, and the strategies section is often the part they return to in the first difficult week.
Sharing a concern or a diagnosis
Parents sometimes hesitate to pass on information about a speech delay, a developmental concern or a diagnosis, worried that it will label their child or affect admission. The worry is understandable, but on balance sharing usually helps. A teacher who knows that a child has had speech therapy will listen differently, seat them thoughtfully and notice early if things go backwards. A teacher who does not know may take several months to realise what is going on, losing time your child cannot easily make up.
Sharing does not mean handing over every report. A good approach is to give the school a short written summary, recently prepared by the specialist, describing what the need is, what has helped and what the specialist recommends for school. Offer the full report in a meeting with the person responsible for learning support, so that it is discussed rather than filed. Ask who will see it and how it will be stored.
If you are applying to schools and fear that disclosure will cost a place, consider what you would gain from a place at a school unable or unwilling to support your child. Schools that ask about needs before admission are generally trying to judge whether they can meet them. Hearing an honest no in March is better than discovering in October that support is not available.
Privacy: photos, other children and data
Preschool records are full of other children. Group photos in a learning journal, classmates' names in a learning story, and video clips from a class event are fine within the preschool community, but they do not belong in a file sent to another school, and they should not be posted publicly. Before you send anything, look through it with that in mind and remove or crop what concerns other families.
Your own child's information also deserves care. Vietnam's Decree 13/2023/ND-CP on personal data protection sets out rules for handling personal data, including sensitive data such as health information, and schools in other countries operate under their own data protection laws. In practice, you can ask any school how it stores your child's records, who can access them, and how long they are kept. A school that can answer these questions clearly is likely to handle the information responsibly.
Keep your own complete copy, in a format you control. Parent apps and school portals close accounts when a child leaves, and requesting old records later from a school in another country, in another language, is slow. A folder of PDFs and scanned documents, backed up in two places, is the most reliable archive. Name the files with the date and the school, so that years later you can find the Year 1 report or the speech therapy summary without opening every document in turn.
Putting the file together
In the last term of preschool, a short sequence produces a file the next school can use.
- Ask the preschool teacher for a transition summary and the final report, ideally in English and the language of the next school.
- Download the learning journal or app feed in full, and save it in your own storage.
- Choose three or four recent pieces of your child's drawing and writing, dated on the back.
- Collect health information: allergy plans, medication, the vaccination summary and any doctor's letters.
- Ask any specialist for a short school-facing summary with recommendations.
- Put the items for the new school in one folder, physical and digital, and keep the rest in a family archive.
- When your child starts, offer the teacher a short meeting to go through it, rather than sending the file and hoping it is read.
The whole process takes perhaps two or three hours spread over a few weeks. Done once, it also gives you the starting point for every later move, since each new school will ask for the most recent records plus a little history. Add each new school's reports to the same folder as they arrive.
Using the records yourself
The records are not only for schools. Looking back through a year of observations, drawings and reports with your child can be a pleasant way to mark the end of preschool. Children enjoy seeing how they have changed: the scribble that became a person, the first written name, the photos of a project they were proud of. Talking about these helps them see themselves as learners who grow, which is a useful frame to carry into a new school.
For parents, the records are a reference point. If a primary teacher raises a concern in the first year, you can look back to see whether it was noticed before, how it was handled and what helped. If the new school describes your child very differently from the preschool, the difference itself is worth discussing, since children often show different sides in different settings.
Finally, a well-kept record lets you tell your child's story accurately at each move. A family that has lived in two or three countries by the time a child is seven may otherwise struggle to remember which school came when, and in which language. A simple timeline at the front of the folder, with schools, dates and languages, saves a surprising amount of effort later, and it gives your child a clear story of their own early years to tell when they are older.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Will a primary school want my child's whole learning journal?
Usually not. Primary teachers have little time to read long preschool journals, and the most useful material is a short transition summary, the last report and a few samples of work. Keep the full journal for your family, and share a couple of entries only if they show something important about your child.
Should I tell the new school about my child's speech therapy?
In most cases, yes. Teachers who know can support your child from the first day and spot early if progress slips. Share a short, recent summary from the therapist, and offer to discuss the full report in a meeting with the person responsible for learning support.
What if the preschool report is only in Vietnamese?
Ask the preschool for an English version or summary, since many bilingual preschools can provide one. If not, use a translation service, and keep the original alongside. For a Vietnamese primary school, the Vietnamese version is exactly what is needed.
How long should I keep preschool records?
Keep the reports, transition summary and any specialist records at least until your child is well settled in primary school, and longer if you expect to move again. Many families keep them permanently as part of a child's history. They take little space once scanned.
Can I share photos from the learning journal with the new school?
Photos of your child alone are fine to share if they help. Photos that include other children should not be passed on without care, because the other families did not agree to it. Crop them or choose different images.
What if the preschool and the new school see my child differently?
This happens often and is not necessarily a sign that either is wrong. Children behave differently in new settings and with different adults. Share the preschool's view with the new teacher and ask what they see; the conversation between the two pictures is often where the most useful understanding comes from.