Transfer from primary school to secondary school
standardised assessments and teachers’, parents’ and pupils’ views to examine these
issues.
Feelings of apprehension about the move to secondary schools are common
place among pupils (Galton & Willcocks, 1983; Measor & Woods, 1984; Zeedyk et al,
2003) although many look forward to the move and most claim to enjoy it (Chedzoy &
Burden, 2005). Dips or hiatuses in pupil performance are common as they move from
school to school (Reyes, Gillock, Kobus & Sanchez, 2000; Suffolk, 1997) with 40 per
cent of pupils reported to lose motivation and make no progress in the year after transfer
to secondary school (Galton, Gray, & Rudduck, 1999; Hargreaves & Galton, 2001).
Schools have improved in their ability to smooth the transfer and make it less stressful
but discontinuities in teaching methods and demands on learning appear to have been
largely neglected (Hargreaves & Galton, 2001). These discontinuities include students
changing from having predominantly one teacher to having many teachers, often marked
by a different style of teaching and different demands on independence. Additional
difficulties may occur in authorities where primary school children have a wider variety
of secondary school choices. This makes liaison between the many primaries and
secondary schools much more difficult. Failure to negotiate transfer successfully has
been linked to both low academic achievement and prior problem behaviour (Anderson
et al., 2000). Thus children with special educational needs (SEN) may be particularly
vulnerable and this transfer may be exacerbated by a change in the structure of support
systems and exposure to a wider range of contexts where needs may not be well
specified and met. The fact that there is little access to speech and language therapy
support in the UK secondary school settings (Lindsay, Dockrell, Mackie & Letchford,
2005) may place additional pressures on children with language difficulties