Transition IssuesMoving Schools

Developing transition between Primary and Secondary schools in Neath Port Talbot.

Introduction
This report is the result of a comprehensive consultative exercise with both primary and secondary headteachers within our authority and in some instances through consultation with schools in other authorities. The main focus of the report is on curriculum continuity and transition between key stage 2 and key stage 3. We believe that the pastoral aspect of transition has been developed effectively in all cluster groups within the authority. All secondary schools provide a good induction programme organised mainly in the autumn and summer terms prior to transfer for Year 6 pupils and their parents.

This echoes the findings of a comparatively recent study by Maurice Galton, John Gray and Jean Ruddock of Cambridge University. The Cambridge research shows that most secondary schools are now very good at allaying anxiety and settling children in; it's the academic threads that break. It was our perception that the steps taken to develop curriculum continuity were not so greatly advanced and there was evidence emerging from MSP visits during the past two or three years to support this opinion.

As the development of transition was a stated aim of our current ESP we needed to gauge at first hand the effect of current support and how the Education Development Service can further support schools to ensure that transition makes an important contribution to school improvement at primary and secondary level. Also, we found ourselves responding to one of the priorities of the 'Learning Country' paving document; to ensure better transition between primary and secondary school so that it contributes to substantially lifting standards for, and the results achieved by, 11 to 14 year olds; fits with a push to add significant value to what is achieved between ages 7 to 11; and connects with clear agreements between schools and LEAs about outcomes and related support.

We decided to visit all secondary schools and send questionnaires to our primary colleagues. We also visited two secondary schools in Ceredigion where we had heard of perceived good practice. We admit that we may have approached the exercise with some pre-conceived ideas but during the course of our visits we found ourselves genuinely impressed with the enthusiasm and energy apparent in the vast majority of partner groups.

We were also heartened by the fact that many partner groups were seeking to build upon the traditional and embedded pastoral transition approach to develop a common understanding of teaching and learning approaches across key stages. This is where we believe the quest for meaningful transition can be met.

A recent Ofsted report on transition based on visits to 32 primaries and 16 secondaries highlighted two key weaknesses. One was related to the quality of teaching, ' ...the other is to do with expectations. In other words secondary schools are not making enough use of primary schools' information about pupil progress. Comprehensives, generally did not know, in sufficient detail, what their new pupils could do, and they had not set targets for improving attainment during Year 7.'

We also found that there were real issues regarding data transfer and use of data to affect progress in Year 7 in the secondary schools that we visited. Academic research and teachers' practical experiences have concluded that radical approaches are needed in order to:

The concept of continuous progression makes it imperative that we see children's move from one school to another as merely a change in the context of learning and not an interruption. Generally we were enthused by the things we saw and heard of in meetings with secondary headteachers and, in some instances, their transition co-ordinators. Our intention in this document is to:

We would like to thank all those who gave of their time to meet with us or to fill in the transition questionnaire. We would also like to thank the members of the LEA's School Improvement Group who gave us a definite steer on how they would like to see the review conducted, disseminated and actioned.

May we lastly share with you one conclusion found in a document based on a study into primary secondary transfer in science commissioned by the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust:

'the most important message emerging is that it is teachers collaborating, sharing and reflecting jointly on experiences of teaching and learning in science that are most likely to lead to pedagogical change and consequent increase in harmonisation.'

What we found from most of the partner group feedback was that we had evidence of schools doing either too little or too much to facilitate curriculum continuity and transition. There are dangers in both extremes. Do too little and the continuity has little impact on standards, do too much and the whole process becomes burdensome and unwieldy and very often results in energies being directed at areas which do not always facilitate meaningful continuity. We need to get it just right.

During summer term 2004 all primary and secondary headteachers were invited to seminar meetings to discuss the content of this report and to seek agreement on the action needed in relation to the three key issues identified in this report.

. Continue: Current Practices within NPT Partner Groups