Mind the gap: making the transition from primary to secondary
July 2007
The ‘Year 8 dip’ in achievement has been the subject of a great deal of research, indicating that many pupils make little if any progress in the first year or two of secondary school in the core areas of English, maths and science. The transfer from smaller primary schools, where most teaching is undertaken by generalist class teachers, to large secondary schools with specialist teachers, can be difficult for many pupils.
“We forget what it is like to move from working in one room with one teacher to having to cope with 10 subjects in 10 rooms,” argues Damian Allen, Executive Director of Children’s Services at Knowsley Council, who feels that the gap between primary and secondary schools has widened markedly recently. “My argument is based on the inappropriateness of a subject-dominated Key Stage 3 curriculum at secondary together with an increased focus on personalised learning, tracking and progression at Key Stage 2,” he adds. “This exacerbates the classic Year 8 dip.”
The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) was warning of the need for “curricular continuity” across the phases as long ago as 2002. Its document ‘Evaluation of the effectiveness of transfer arrangements at age 11’ recommended that schools “direct their attention to the academic rather than the social aspects of transfer, focusing on pedagogic strategies known to improve both pupil attainment and motivation.” It also urged that consideration should be given to continuity in ways of learning.
Looking at ways of learning as well as the social aspects of education is central to the way that Nottingham’s Djanogly City Academy works. It is using technology in ways that will, over time, address some of the Ofsted concerns.
Assistant Principal Sanjesh Sharma describes the way that they work. “We have one teacher who liaises with primary schools. And we have schoolbased community learning leaders who also go out to the primary schools.
Those are the traditional mechanisms. On a more innovative level, we are in the process of getting our feeder primaries to use our Learning Gateway, our virtual learning environment (VLE). Essentially we will host intranets for the feeder schools and it will cost them nothing. Because they will have access to our VLE they will have access to our resources. That will create some continuity. Pupils will be able to look into the future to see what they will be doing in Year 8 and Year 9 and so on. It will take down some of the boundaries but there is a little resistance to the idea from some teachers in the primary schools; they worry about having the capability to use the VLE.”
Djanogly might be considered to have an advantage because, as an academy, it does not have to adhere closely to the National Curriculum. It uses the curriculum of the New Basics Project which has been running for about six years in Queensland, Australia. Students work through a range of “rich tasks” which range from science and ethics through to national identity. The originators describe it as an “attempt to empower and encourage teachers, unclutter the curriculum, up the ante intellectually, deliver fewer alienated students, prepare students for a future in an uncertain world, and position the classroom within the global village.”
The rich tasks encompass all the core skills so there are no discrete lessons in English, maths and ICT. They are all embedded within the rich tasks. Assessment is based on the tasks. At Djanogly the pupils are in groups of around 70 with four core staff, as opposed to 12 or 13 teachers and all pupils staying in one area. The areas are flexible and have movable walls and projection facilities.
Children also have access to laptops. “It involves us working with students in a very different way,” says Sharma. “They work in groups rather than working singly. It is similar to the primary school set-up they are used to but it is a secondary curriculum.”
The transmission of pupil data via Capita’s SIMS electronic transfer is already used by many schools to support transition. Jane Carson of Roselands Primary School in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, describes the process. “We use an electronic common transfer file (CTF). We complete the form and send it to the school that children have applied to. When the SATs are completed the file is revised with the raw scores. We also transmit preliminary information forms which give all the teacher assessment levels and a profile of the pupils, giving their interests. Every child also does a piece of unaided autobiographical writing. However there are limitations: for instance, an English teacher in one of the secondary schools will only have numerical data to go on.”
Jane Cooke, Head of ICT at Saltash Secondary Community School in Cornwall, likes to use technology creatively to smooth the pastoral and personal elements of the crossover. The transition project at Saltash involves linking to the primary schools via social networking software. “We link our school to the primaries using Skype video-conferencing. The students, both at my end, Year 7, and the other end, discuss what we are up to in ICT and any exciting things we are doing. The Year 6 students ask the Year 7 students questions about the school, what it is like being at such a big school, whether they get loads of homework, if the teachers are monsters etc. This works really well, and both groups behave just like children and have loads of fun with the medium of video-conferencing; lots of larking around and being a bit daft, loud, having fun with the sound and camera.”
Cooke feels the experience is a great ice breaker. Both sets of students are on home ground so they feel confident. She emphasises how affordable the technology is, and “totally transferable, achievable, requires no technical knowledge at all, no tech support”.
However she feels that Skype works for most students, but not all: “The quiet ones - the ones with problems they don’t want to reveal to a whole group, let alone a remote group through a camera - have one-to-one sessions with one student. In this way they are paired with someone who was perhaps from their primary last year, so they are familiar with them, or they will have a Year 7 student who is mature enough to be a good mentor. When the Year 6 students come up to the school for their transition visit they will be escorted by their mentors, have lunch with them and feel, hopefully, more confident about the transfer.”
So, achieving a balance so that both the pedagogical and social issues are kept consistent across the transition seems to be of utmost importance. Additionally, it seems likely, with improved infrastructures and the increasing resources in secondary schools, that the challenges of transition and continuity will continue to test everyone in education.
However, pioneering new ways of easing transition, making secondary work more cross-curricular and investing some of the new resources in feeder primaries, as well as using technology to aid social interaction between the two stages, could all help to overcome these challenges.