By afternoon bell I know the smell of sweaty hands on sticky desktops and I know too well who did not bring a hanky to school.

Announcing the winners of POETry  formed part of this week’s meeting of school transition researchers from Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, Scotland and Sweden. 

Hosted by Charles Sturt University education professors Bob Perry and Sue Dockett, the Pedagogies of Educational Transitions (POET) group discussed how children and their parents handled starting school.

“Dad, Dad, I can't start school. I don't know how to read.”

Professor Dockett said the competition evolved from the acronym to explore the topic in different ways.

“It's a sort of a conversation starter where most people can remember what happened when they started school,” she said.

The teacher kissing my hand with a stamp.

Perth poet Louise Nicholas won POETry, with Josephine Clarke and Bill Cotter highly commended, but all entries have been published in Studio, an Australian poetry and fiction literary journal.

Studio editor Paul Grover, also a CSU lecturer, said entrants took a range of themes like uniforms, school bags, “accidents”, and different perspectives, such as child, teacher, friend or parent.

I saw her happy face in the window and all the way home - I cried.

“The creative responses actually give a really rich, insightful understanding of life,” Mr Grover said.

Professor Dockett said transition issues like age and curriculum appeared similar throughout the world. 

She believed successful transition involved teachers, children and parents working together positively.

“Trust your child,” Professor Dockett said.

“Because even though they're quite young, children are incredibly competent in all sorts of ways.”

And they won’t always be quite young.

All of a sudden the year disappears.

The grip loosens, we blink and her ninth year appears.