What actually is 'transition' for Year 6?

[Saladmakesmesad]

Everyone keeps saying that the reason Year 6 are being sent back is for the 'transition'. I don't get it. Please someone tell me what I'm missing about this ever so important 'transition' business. In real terms - what does it involve? What do they actually DO in these last 6 weeks or so that will mean that after the 6 - 7 weeks of summer holiday, they're ready to start secondary school?

(Obviously they will not be visiting their secondary schools as those are still closed. And obviously no proms - not that I think they're in any way relevant.)

Full disclosure: I have a Year 6 and have no intention of sending them back.

I work in a primary school in a very deprived area. Transition is really important for most of our kids. We usually do quite a bit of transition work with them outside of the secondary visits- think setting expectations, organisational skills, aspiration work, behaviour support, targeted work & support for children with anxiety and 1:1/ small group transition work for those we know will have specific difficulties with transition and are at risk of dropping out early or being excluded.
This usually is work we do throughout year six not just at then end, but having been closed now I can see having them back for a few weeks,if safe to do so, will be of real benefit to them. Also as PP said,from a psychological/ emotional point of view the chance for closure and to say goodbye is hugely important.
Also worth noting that the chance of all y6 children returning full time is small- we will be discussing today how we will work it. To keep as much distancing as possible, and reduce number of contacts, children are likely to be in maybe alternate weeks, or days, in small groups. At least that's how we would do it, government may have other plans....

We have teachers coming in to our primary from the feeding secondaries to talk about things and for kids to ask questions.They’ll still be able to do that. The kids also make things to leave their mark on the school and there is a fair bit done on reassurance as they can get a bit wobbly.They could do quick tours in said secondaries although getting them there might be tricky. Teachers give loads of info this term re what homework, school day etc will be like. I suspect this year there will be some catch up academic work to get them up to speed and also sex Ed lessons which are normally in this term. They also need to go through the process of saying goodbye to their primary and friends. Year 11s have lost that but are older.

Expecting kids to rock up to a huge bustling secondary from primary without any kind of transition wouldn’t be that kind. They’ll need more assurance than normal this year.

Primaries can cover academic gaps for other year groups in their school. It’s going to be very hard for secondaries to do that for kids from all over the place they don’t know.They’ll be getting back into the groove with all the other year groups. A catch up for kids in year 6 without good home learning environments is crucial.

My ds (now yr7) did a lot of transition work in yr 6. He was identified as someone who needed extra help due to anxiety- and there was at lest 10% of yr 6 with similar issues.
His secondary school head always comments that children start yr 7 at a lower level than they should, and they have to give booster classes, so maybe they will try to close this gap?

I was interpreting as more emotional and psychological. Having closure after spending 7 years at one school where perhaps they will say goodbye to teachers and other pupils they may not see again. I don't have a year 6 child though so am just basing it on what I can remember.

Year 6 I imagine will be aimed at:

• mopping up key curriculum topics which will be important to go armed to secondary with so as not to throw the whole start back in a new school
• psychological closure and ability to move on and look forward
• a safe environment amongst established peers to process the moving on
• positive messages to end year 6 on to start their new chapter. Signing t-shirts and having fun is not just to fill the days, it's part of a psychological process.
• likely to be a few transition days as secondary schools will still have teachers working and keyworker/vulnerable kids may be attending already

I have a year 6 daughter ( and a year 3 son) I'm really pleased year 6 is going back in.
My two have both been going into school 3 days a week since kick down anyway as I'm a nurse and a single parent so have had no option but to use the childcare. But they have been 2 of only 4 in the whole school going in, and non in their year groups.
My daughter needs this psychological closure to primary school with her friends, the teachers at the school agree year 6 should be prioritised.

My son is in year 6 and i dont feel confident about him going back to school before september i feel it would be more beneficial if they opened high schools for the 2 days that they would have visited with the appropriate safety measures i understand that people need to work etc and need schools open but i find it crazy that they are saying restaurants cinemas etc cant open till july but schools go back in june 🤔

I agree that it's closure more than transition that makes it key for Y6 to go back.

It’s to get closure on primary as much as anything else. Get into routines.

As for high schools not open,most are still open for key workers. The headteacher emailed the year 6 pupils starting there in September last week.

They have said they are aiming to still have the planned transition day in July in some form if possible and head teachers may well still visit the year sixes going up.

Ours do a week in high school. Get the bus, have classes etc.

This is a very low number of responses for something that's been shouted about over and over again on here. I genuinely felt I must be missing something. No?

You gave it under an hour at nearly midnight on Sunday night.

I have a year 6 and I am hugely grateful he will get the chance for a proper transition from Year 6. The kids he's been with since nursery are going their separate ways, and he is also saying goodbye to the place in which he has spent a very happy childhood, while preparing for the greater challenges of the world of adolescence.

I work in children's mental health and we always ask how secondary transition went when assessing -- it is a time when existing difficulties are exposed by the challenges of transition and new difficulties can emerge, for the same reasons. It is a crucial time to get right, as whatever difficulties begin to emerge at this time can cast a shadow over important years ahead.

People expecting emotional closure need to seriously consider what their children will be going back to.

• They may not be in their own classroom with their own teacher
• They may not be in a group with their friends
• All countries who have returned to school are making them work and eat at a distance
• No assembly
• No dance
• No shirt signings
• No hugs, from each other or staff

Our ‘tradition’ is a pizza lunch before the rest of the school and parents clap them out of the building.

It can’t happen this year.

I’ve said it about Y1 and I’ll say it about Y6- cold, drastic social distancing measures would be worse than nothing.

With my children the transition involved a few trips to the high school and a couple of full days spent there. It was definitely useful. Having said that when I went to high school (I’m in my 40s) there weren’t any transition days, you just pitched up on the first day.

Dd is year 6, she has missed out on so much this school year with all this happening. I think they need to be able to go in and say bye to their friends, the kids that they have known since they were 3, that they might not see again.
Even if they don't do full hours or its limited days a week I don't care.
I feel for the kids going to massive secondary schools with no transition days- not knowing your way around the maze of corridors.

Where we are, we have middle schools, and you change after Y5. DS is nice in Y6 and has been at middle school for 2 terms. For “transition” last summer, all the incoming Y6s spent the last 2 weeks of the school year at middle school. They had some leavers last celebrations in their last week at First school. As well as sorting out tutor groups and getting to know their way round the school, they got set up with all the passwords, fingerprint recognition (dinners, lockers), bus passes.... that they needed. When they went back in September it was straight into assembly and l proper lessons.

This transition trickles down through the whole first/middle/high school system. Y11s leave school, Y8s transition to high school, Y6 transition to middle school. Everyone else goes into their new year groups/classes/teachers, and Reception teachers go and do home visits, and have some transition days at school for the children joining in Sept.

@marsden2008
Totally agree with you. Think they are risking children's health, also children might pass illnesses onto vulnerable adults. Already there are some serious diseases in kids (multi-organ inflammation) thought to be linked to COVID-19 in both UK and US. Even though most kids currently display mild symptoms, we do not know the long term consequences of this coronavirus illness on kids and adults yet. It looks like they might damage kidneys and lungs in some adults post recovery. I would rather my child fall behind in his study, or can't settle in the next academic year, than to catch this disease or pass it to some vulnerable adults.

Yeah it is very worrying isnt it i understand some people need to send kids back to school for work reasons etc but i just hope if they do re open in june its not compulsary as i would feel happier if my kids were with me until september plus my son in year 6 has to get a bus to school so not sure how he would even get there safely i feel june is too rushed

I have a year 6. I too don't really understand what transition actually is.

2 days of visiting your new school? Is the norm here. What else do you even need?

I don't get it!

I have a Y6 too. I see the need for closure that others have mentioned as important, though I don't think that needs 6 weeks and it could be done by rotating maybe with other years.

when I went to high school (I’m in my 40s) there weren’t any transition days, you just pitched up on the first day.
Ok @Millicent10 but I'm that age (not at the lower end either) and even I got a day at my new school. We didn't call it transition, but it wasn't entirely unknown.

You gave it under an hour at nearly midnight on Sunday night.
Yes @PrimalLass I also felt that the OP wasn't genuinely interested in the answer so much as wanting to prove other threads and posters wrong.

Transition at my dd's primary meant that for one day each week of the summer term the y6's attended the secondary school. Secondary school teachers came twice a week and taught the y6's. Outside of that they did the school performance, bikeability, residential trip, lots of outside visits, they had a business producing and selling to raise funds, they did inter generational learning where the over 60's social group would come in and they would do wood crafts and wool crafts and gardening. Lots and lots of enrichment activities Dd loved every minute of it tbh and the children saw it as a reward for all their hard work

In our Middle Schools children are there from Y5-Y8. No guidance as yet as to how the 115 of these particular schools should proceed, as obviously Y6 aren't transitioning anywhere.

@Mosswalk I agree it will be different but I think it will still be very beneficial. My school will definitely think about friendship groups when we do classroom rotas. I think schools can definitely make it fun and worthwhile for them to be in school. We can still do a lot of transition and work regarding high school.

Hmm.

I will send y6 DD back. Not for transition activity x or transition activity y particularly, but for a few weeks to say goodbye to the friends, environment and teachers she has spent the whole of her life that she can remember in.

It's a small school and there are 7 year 6 children. It is like extended family to her No way can I imagine not having the chance to say goodbye.