Moving from small to super-size school
Anastasia De Waal, 28 November 2008
The transition from primary to secondary school can be very difficult for pupils – yet surprisingly it’s an issue which doesn’t tend to be granted much attention.
Moving from a small, generally fairly close-knit community, to a comparatively impersonal school with often over 1000 pupils, can be very daunting for pupils; particularly so as the shift is from being not just familiar with the school but the eldest, to being new and the youngest.
Research published in the Times Education Supplement today has looked into how this transition can be made easier for pupils. Martin Hughes, professor of education at Bristol University sought to investigate the most effective ways of preparing pupils for the transfer. The gist of his findings is ‘support’ from both parents and teachers. Notably, his research has found that children’s attitudes to school become less positive between the last year of primary and the first year of secondary school.
The striking element about Professor Hughes’ research, at least as it is reported, is that it hasn’t sought to address the underlying issues which are making this transition difficult. One of the main problems for primary school leavers is that they find themselves removed from a school environment where they had, in most case, continuity and a sense of belonging: they have their own class teacher, who gets to know them well, but also their own classroom and a feeling of community derived from familiarity with the whole school. In secondary school, a great deal, if not all of this is lost. Particularly for children with less stability in their home-lives, this security is a significant loss.
Whilst having the same teacher continuously is clearly impracticable in secondary schools, and lab requirements for science and even languages mean that a ‘resident’ classroom is difficult to replicate, the one obvious negative which could be tackled isn’t: oversized schools. More or less guaranteed to lead to a lack of community are schools so large that anonymity, rather than a sense of belonging, is inevitable. Never mind how daunting this may be, it is potentially disastrous for behaviour and learning.
I have been at and taught in a few different schools in different sectors.
There is an easy solution to this problem – adopt the transition age of the independent sector. At year 6 children are too young to take on much responsibility as prefects etc. in primary school but at year 8 are much more mature. So by extending primary school to year 8 the children would be able to blossom and mature more before making the transition.
At year 7 children suddenly become youngest in the school while also being easily bullied and influenced in a bad way by the more ‘mature’ environment. In year 7 they are generally well behaved and hard working, in year 8 they are badly behaved and less likely to work, in year they are terrors and in year 10 if one is lucky they will start to settle into GCSE.
If they moved to secondary school at year 9 they would be more secure in their identity and not have time to become poorly behaved before starting on GCSE. Year 9 would also be a better age to decide whether children should go to a grammar or technical/vocational school.