Working with Ealing's inspector for English it was decided that we would base our work on curriculum units already in place in both schools fitting our plans within the scope of the local authority's Standards Fund and Beacon budgets. Our main aims were to reduce the dip at key stage 3 transfer and ensure progression, raise standards of achievement in writing, develop skills and strategies for non-fiction writing and media education in Year 6/7 and create a climate for mutual exchange of information, methodologies and issues of transition.

Staff from the two schools met and compared their units of work, finding that they were around reflections on primary school life, autobiography and images of school and that happily they already linked. Our project became Images of School, at key stage 2. Children reflected on time spent at primary school and then explored images and thoughts about secondary school.

Probably the most valuable part of the project was when staff observed each others classes. It allowed the primary school to see where their work was leading and the high school to see what was achieved at key stage 2. Having observed more discussion and debate taking place in the high school, primary teachers made more time for this during the last half of the term.

Some key issues arose from our discussions and observations. At key stage 2 there was more differentiation through tasks set at different levels of ability during the independent work in the literacy hour. In secondary English, differentiation arose through the outcome of work, with all pupils starting out on the same tasks.

Key stage 2 followed the National Literacy Strategy framework, which had been in operation for two years. At key stage 3 there was still freedom to develop schemes of work but as this was about to change with the introduction of the secondary English framework we looked at the draft framework for key stage 3 and mapped our unit onto the new requirements.

We observed similarities between learning skills and objectives taught at each key stage and tailored both our units to take account of these to ensure progression and continuity, covering, for example, writing letters, poems, and newspaper articles.

The difference in methodologies between the two schools made for interesting debate. The primary school uses the effective learning cycle: a system of teaching which begins with discussing learning objectives and expected outcomes for the lesson and ends with a recall of these objectives and thinking about what should happen next. Children work together during the lesson, helping each other's understanding. This system is used for all curriculum areas and fits well with the literacy hour. Classes use a lot of colour, mindmaps, songs and music as the effective learning cycle requires work to be visual, auditory or kinaesthetic to make the most of children's different learning styles. The high school used more teacher led discussions but having seen the key stage 2 work is considering introducing elements of the effective learning cycle.

We intend to use our Beacon money to continue the initiative this year. Although it is too early to see the outcomes of our work we have begun a productive discussion and have learned much more about each other's work. And the borough is developing a broader transition project that covers maths and science so our work will soon be come part of a wider cooperation between staff.

 

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has published a summary of research it commissioned on the dip experiences by many children on moving from primary to secondary school. The University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate Evaluation Team looked at reading and writing in the early years of secondary school, finding that in general the dip was temporary and that most pupils were back on track by Year 10.

 
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