School Transfer from Primary to Secondary Education

The research focuses on the sensitive issue of changing schools from primary to secondary and addresses the intellectual, emotional, social and environmental concerns encountered during this transitional period. It also examines the perceptions of parents and teachers. The hypothesis of my project is that there are difficulties in adjusting to a new educational setting because of the demands imposed by the changes involved in the transfer process from primary to secondary. The difficulties could be expressed in terms of the way children react to school transfer in the intellectual, social, emotional, organisational and environmental settings. The changes involve the size and the more complex organisation of the new school, new forms of discipline and authority, the possibility of losing one's friends, making new acquaintances, having more than one teacher, becoming the youngest instead of being the oldest, different teaching methods, the prospect of being bullied and more demanding homework. For some this transitional period is considered as a natural course, while for others it is thought of as a traumatic experience. Some describe the differences between primary and secondary school as a challenge but others see it as a gap. However, school transfer from primary to secondary education should not be considered as an instant event covering only the transitional period between primary graduation and enrolment at the secondary school but a process starting well before the top year of primary school and spanning the year-to-year transition during their whole schooling career at the secondary school The findings of this research suggest that a considerable percentage of the children that move from primary to secondary education find it extremely difficult to adjust to the new schooling environment socially and intellectually and this difficulty is often long lasting. At the same time, though the overwhelming majority of pupils seem to be adjusting to the new sector of education relatively easily, this adjustment refers more to the existing state of affairs and the unofficial culture of secondary education and less to a desired even transition from year-to-year within the same school. To overcome the above deficiencies, an Induction Programme is proposed for the pupils transferring from primary to secondary education, which addresses the problems of school transfer and those of year-to-year transition during the whole schooling career of a student at the secondary school.