If you are planning for moving up days, tasters and first lessons or even thinking about your first term of teaching with a new year 7 class, you'll be well aware of the importance of a 'good' transition for students' wellbeing and academic progress.
Of course, transition isn't a fixed period – students' first term at secondary school – but rather an ongoing process with a number of stages. Educational research tells us that a successful transition from primary to secondary involves students feeling a sense of belonging to a school, and being academically and behaviourally involved (The Nuffield Foundation STARS report, 2015).
We know too that helping students to become resilient, autonomous learners matters, and concentrating on building strong relationships and communication with students and between peers can really help too (EEF, 2020). With these principles in mind, you'll find a range of resources to warmly welcome new students below.
Transition resources
For first lessons, try Chat cards or Questions to make you think why for non-threatening icebreakers that will help students to feel instantly more comfortable with each other.
Our 20 teaching ideas collection, written for teachers by expert practitioners, includes a range of eclectic and novel ideas for getting to know students, including icebreaker games, learning students' names and for transition in general. Sue Cowley's guide to getting to know your learners will also help with differentiation.
For English-themed activities, Creating a group poem about secondary school does what it says on the tin, and First impressions of a poem is similarly accessible. Dear Form tutor, a scaffolded letter task, will help new year 7s share some insights about themselves. To help students to become more autonomous as learners, our Reflection mat is a flexible resource you will want to return to time and again.
You might also find our Closing the word gap: KS2-3 transition support guide, written in partnership with Oxford University Press, invaluable as a way to connect with new parents.
Here's to happy transitions for all!
This article was first published as an Editor's pick newsletter in July 2021.
