Primaries do an amazing job

Some thoughts on transition, prompted by Scott Pughsley, head of geography in a secondary school, who posted this:

In some, but not all parts of the sector, primary and secondary phases might as well be on different planets. While there is much excellent work going on, it's not the default. I think there are a number of aspects to transition that need further attention:

First to acknowledge the good work: there's much strong practice on the pastoral aspects of pupils moving schools. Most secondary schools make pupils feel welcome and pay attention to the emotional and social aspects of pupils' experience.

However, I believe more attention needs to be paid to the distinction between 'induction' and 'transition'. Most schools have good systems in place for 'induction'. These include pupils in Year 6 visiting the secondary schools, visits to primaries by secondary leaders with responsibility for transition, information about timetables, uniform, tutor groups, expectations etc.

If we are serious about closing gaps, then I believe we need to pay as much attention to and put our efforts into 'transition'. And a great deal of this relates to the curriculum. Ofsted's Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? identified poor transition as one of the reasons why the performance of secondary schools had stalled:

And while paying attention to the pastoral needs is essential, the academic needs to go further up the agenda:

And we really need to nail this:

It's not rocket science

And finally, we need to stop talking about 'feeder' schools! Why? Well it implies that pupils are going to be gobbled up. Now, of course they aren't literally going to be consumed by their secondary schools, but language matters and I believe there are a number of problems with the phrase 'feeder primaries'. For one thing, it implies there is a hierarchy, there is a flavour of the secondary phase being more important than earlier phases in a child's education. This is not the case. Every point in a child's journey matters. What then would be a better term? Well, I suggest 'partner' schools. I am sure there are others that reflect the joint work that the sector is, or should be, doing as pupils move from one setting to the next.