Transfer and transition in English schools: reviewing the evidence

The study of the transfer of pupils from primary to secondary schools in England and Wales has been a continuing pre-occupation of administrators, teachers, and researchers during the past three decades. Much of this research, however, has focused on the social adjustment of pupils to the change of school, rather than the impact of the school change on academic performance. What evidence there is on the latter issue suggests that around 40% of pupils experience a hiatus in progress during school transfer. This has been mainly attributed to a lack of curriculum continuity between the primary and secondary stages of schooling. Recent work suggests that even more important may be the variations in teaching approach and the consequent failure of pupils to take account of these differences in their efforts at learning to become “professional pupils.”