Transfer and transition in English schools: reviewing the evidence

International Journal of Educational Research 33 (2000) 341}363

Chapter 2

Transfer and transition in English schools: reviewing the evidence Maurice Galton*, Ian Morrison, Tony Pell Homerton College, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2PH, UK

Abstract 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 di!erences in their e!orts at learning to become `professional pupils.a  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Transfer; Transition

Unlike any other educational system, that of England and Wales requires a sizeable number of its school children to engage in a process that research suggests, at best, causes slight apprehension, while at its worst, deeply felt anxiety. It is a process that takes up a considerable amount of some teachers' time and e!ort; time which some would argue might be better devoted to classroom teaching. It results in some pupils underachieving in comparison to their performance in the previous years. The process, known as transfer, concerns the movement of a whole year group of pupils from one school to another.

* Corresponding author.  Several writers use the terms transfer and transition interchangeably. Here we are using transfer to denote the move from one phase of education to another involving a change of schools. We use transition when referring to year by year moves within a school when moving up a grade. 0883-0355/00/$ - see front matter  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 8 3 - 0 3 5 5 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 2 1 - 5

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At the beginning of each school year in England and Wales, there will be some children, apart from those aged 6, 15 and 17, who will transfer to a new school. There they will come face to face with new teachers and many pupils whom they do not recognize. They may have spent the summer vacation attempting to come to terms with the change and wondering whether the various rumors about what the older pupils do to the `new kidsa are true. The youngest children to experience transfer are those who move at seven to `Juniora schools (ages 7}11) covering Key Stage 2. Most of these feeder schools (ages 5}7) will come from the 546 nursery schools recorded in the Department for Education and Employment's DfEE (1999) statistics. However, these "gures do not always distinguish clearly between schools according to the age range. Some `all-througha primary schools (ages 5}11), for example, contain nurseries and would be included in the quoted "gure of 546. There are similar problems with middle schools where a distinction is made between a primary school deemed middle (ages 8}12) and a secondary school deemed middle, which could cover either the 9}13, 10}14 or 11}14 age ranges. Some xrst schools (ages 5}8, 5}9, or 5}10) that feed into middle schools will also contain nursery units. Children going to school in Local Education Authorities with middle school systems will therefore change school at either 8, 9, 10 or 11 years of age and again at either 12, 13 or 14 years, respectively. Local Education Authorities (LEAs) also operate di!erent systems at the secondary level. Some have schools (ages 11}16) followed by transfer to a sixth form college or a college of Further Education, while others favor all-through schools (ages 11}18). All of this lends support to our earlier claim, that every autumn, with the exception of ages 6, 15 and 17, some children somewhere in England and Wales will be engaged in the process called transfer. To an outsider, the system must seem remarkably complicated and di$cult to manage. Most other countries around the world uniformly adopt either two- or three-tier systems. The more complicated English arrangements came into being mainly as the result of secondary school reorganization during the 1970s. Faced with a need to create a comprehensive system without spending vast sums of money, most local authorities reorganized the education system around the existing stock of buildings and then sought, subsequently, to provide an educational justi"cation for the chosen scheme. Thus, as Andy Hargreaves (1980) argued, a notion of a particular phase of development between childhood and adolescence was invented where it was said there existed homogeneity in physical, moral, emotional, and intellectual growth. This period, known as the middle years (Hargreaves, 1980, p. 96) was said to di!er markedly from other phases of children's development. However, whether it began

 In the English system children enter the reception class of the primary school at "ve years of age although some schools o!er specialist nursery provision for three and four year olds. Years one to Two (Y1}Y2) are now called Key Stage One (KS1), years three to six Key Stage two (KS2) and years 7 to 9 Key Stage Three (KS3). Each stage has a statutory imposed National Curriculum and culminates in national testing in English, mathematics and science. The results of these tests for each school in the country are published in the form of league tables. Under the English system most pupils take the KS2 tests in the summer term immediately before transfer but those in &middle schools take the examination when they still have several years left before the move to the next school.

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when a child reached the age of eight and ended at twelve or occupied the years between nine and thirteen often appeared to be in#uenced by the state of existing buildings, the size of catchment areas, and projected population growth. Those seeking to justify reorganization based on transfer at 8 and 12 saw in middle schools the opportunity for extending the best of primary education for a further year (Sharp, 1980). In other LEAs, those arguing for a 9 to 13 system provided the alternative justi"cation that able children in the top half of the primary school could gain access to specialist subject teachers who had previous experience in secondary schools (Marsh, 1980).

1. Transfer and curriculum continuity Whatever system was eventually chosen, however, it was soon established that there were problems in managing transfer so that a satisfactory degree of curriculum continuity was maintained. This was particularly important when three tiers of reorganization were involved since transfer at 13 (and even more so at 14) left upper secondary schools little time to prepare students for the public examinations at age 16. Over time, therefore, the justi"cation for having middle schools changed. Instead of merely o!ering opportunities for either extending primary practice or introducing secondary specialties earlier, many schools now claimed to provide a curriculum for the middle years that closely matched this unique stage of children's intellectual development. Tensions between upper and middle schools in matters of curriculum developed. For example, as part of an integrated humanities scheme, a middle school might favor local history as a source of project work. This might frustrate the upper school that included social history as one of its main options for what was then the GCE Ordinary Level examination or the alternative Certi"cate of Secondary Education (CSE). Children from this particular middle school would be expected to cope with aspects of the industrial revolution with little knowledge of the political context, whereas pupils from another feeder school might not be similarly disadvantaged. As the comprehensive system rapidly expanded in the 1970s, schools tended to deal with the issue of transfer in one of two ways. Some believed that pupils would adjust  Thus several Local Authority Education O$cers in their submissions to their Education Committees would use the identical sentence beginning *There is a time in the development of a pupil somewhere between the end of early childhood and the onset of adolescence. This period is generally taken to occur between the ages of2+ Then would be inserted eight to twelve or nine to thirteen years as appropriate.  Even greater di$culties could be encountered in modern languages and science. Some middle schools o!ered both French and German and this tended to guarantee a place in the double language option for GCE. These pupils were able to drop another subject and so would be timetabled together for the compulsory core subjects. Similar problems occurred in allowing choices of additional mathematics or extra science. In e!ect, fast-track streams were established at the outset that then had a knock on e!ect across the remaining broad ability bands. Thus one of the key arguments in establishing comprehensive education, putting an end to the rigid streaming of the grammar schools was subverted by lack of co-operation between the middle and upper sectors.

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more easily if the ethos in the "rst year was as similar as possible to the primary school. These schools tended to keep their "rst year pupils away from their older peers by providing a separate play area, holding "rst year group assemblies and, most importantly, by retaining the system where the form teacher took the pupils for most of their lessons. Others, however, argued that transfer was a `rite of passage,a a term used by Glaser and Strauss (1971) to describe periods in life when individuals undergo a change of status marking in this case the emergence from childhood into adolescence. For those of this persuasion, such an important status passage (Measor & Woods, 1984) needed to be symbolized by a distinct shift in the pattern of schooling. Schools adopting this approach introduced specialist subject teaching often accompanied by setting and banding for key subjects such as English and mathematics, from the "rst day of the autumn term. Identifying the more able children and those with learning di$culties on entry to these schools, so that they could be placed in the correct sets, could sometimes be problematic. Accurate information about the pupils' previous performance prior to entry was not available since, with the ending of the entry examination for secondary schools, the so-called eleven plus, few primary schools continued to favor standardized testing and suitable alternative diagnostic tests were not readily available. Faced with the alternative of either a wide ranging mixed ability group or a set with a small number of `di$cult childrena secondary teachers, many with only previous experience of teaching academically able pupils in the former grammar schools, adopted the strategy of a `fresh start.a The "rst few days of the new school year were, therefore, largely taken up with rapid revision to "nd out what pupils knew. Regardless of the alternative chosen, more able children could easily become bored by repeating work they had already mastered, while slower learning children could "nd the rapid pace of these revision classes too much for them. In either case, academic progress could be retarded as a consequence. The consultative document, Education in Schools (DES, 1977), acknowledged that there were substantial problems of these kind at the points of transfer and argued that the whole problem needed the urgent attention of Local Education Authorities. Gorwood (1986) reported that one primary head teacher discovered, while lecturing to a group of secondary principals, that many never looked at the transfer documents that were passed on from primary schools. Most of these principals supported their sta! in adopting the aforementioned tabula rasa policy with respect to new pupils. In support of this approach it was argued that a secondary school's objectives were necessarily more academically speci"c than those adopted by most primary schools. Consequently, secondary teachers could more e$ciently ascertain a child's ability in their specialist subject without reference to primary records, particularly since these were often vague and sometimes misleading (Orsborn, 1977). Another study of transfer procedures in the Isle of Wight (Stillman & Maychell, 1982) reported on attempts to develop some general guidelines for producing the transfer record. This aimed to establish uniformity in presentation * comparability of assessments and information which was needs related * in providing receiving schools with what they wanted. The result was the setting up across the country of numerous working parties on record keeping as LEAs attempted to respond to the

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1977 Department of Education and Science (DES) circular in an e!ort to improve curriculum continuity. The general conclusion, however, was that these working parties were only partially successful and many enjoyed `a chequered historya (Gorwood, 1986, p. 142).

2. Early research on school transfer Much of the earlier research on school transfer focussed on the issues discussed so far; particularly establishing greater continuity in the process and reducing the anxiety among pupils. One of the earliest and largest studies was carried out by Nisbet and Entwistle (1969) and concerned the best age for transfer to secondary school in order to minimize these problems. These researchers followed 3200 nine-year-old Scottish children over a "ve-year period (what in England is now known as from Year 5 to Year 9). The main focus of the study was the linkage between intelligence and academic progress during transfer and beyond. Verbal reasoning scores were found to be accurate predictors of attainment between the ages of 9 and 11 but the correlation between the two variables fell thereafter. This suggested that there was little to be gained by extending the period of primary education in schools where pupils were placed in classes according to ability in order to increase the accuracy of the selection process. Nisbet and Entwhistle found that other factors such as social economic status, parental involvement, pupils' ambition, and pupils' social maturity were stronger correlates of success in later years. Ambition and social maturity were particularly important for girls. Nisbett and Entwhistle concluded that the youngest and least mature were at greatest risk during the transfer process. Adopting a di!erent approach, Murdoch (1966) analyzed 550 post-transfer pupil essays. Only 11% of boys and 8% of girls said they found transfer a `wholly enjoyablea experience. Nearly two-thirds of both boys and girls experienced di$culties of some sort. However, after one term in the new school 80% of pupils said they preferred it to their primary schools. Taken together these two studies suggest that while the social e!ects of transfer wear o! reasonably quickly for the majority of pupils the e!ects on academic progress do not. The organizational features of the transfer process were explored by the City of Birmingham Education Department (BEDC, 1975) which carried out a large-scale survey of its schools, most of which transferred pupils from primary to secondary at the age of 11. The Birmingham Department research team found little evidence of liaison between the primary and secondary schools. What did exist consisted mostly of visits of secondary teachers to the primary school. The survey found that, before transfer, 44% of the children were concerned about missing their primary teacher; even a year later 33% still expressed this concern. Few children had any notion or experience of what the prospective transfer school would be like, although the vast majority eventually enjoyed their "rst year, liking the challenge and the variety of activities. Pupils said that they particularly appreciated being treated as adults by the new teachers. The most popular subject was physical education followed by English, which was more liked than geography and history. The sample was equally divided on

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mathematics but did not like religious education. Liking a subject seemed to be strongly associated with liking an individual teacher. At the time issues such as bullying, homework, school size, and discipline did not feature heavily in the list of dislikes or anxieties among these pupils. The report recommended better liaison, better communication between the home and the school, and a new record system including a transfer card which would inform the new school about a pupil's attendance record, attainment, and behavior. Again, these results suggest that most pupils quickly settled into the routine of the new school. Where there was a hiatus in progress it seemed to be heavily in#uenced by the relationship with the new teacher. Liking or disliking subjects appeared to be strongly in#uenced by these adult}pupil relationships. Another large scale study was that of Youngman and Lunzer (1977) who followed 1500 pupils in rural and urban schools through and beyond the transfer period. The majority of pupils expressed satisfaction with their new school but approximately 10% found the experience distressing for at least the "rst two terms after transfer. IQ, reading, and mathematics scores as well as attitudes to school and measures of social and personal academic self-concept were collected. Cluster analysis was carried out based on these ratings of social and academic adjustment and yielded six pupil types. Of particular interest was a `disenchanteda cluster whose members had moderately positive social adjustment ratings and initially performed well academically, but whose performance subsequently declined gradually over time. The other group seriously at risk was the `worrieda group whose members had negative social adjustment ratings and low academic ability, and whose performance continued to decline over the twelve months during which the research was carried out. As we saw earlier, some secondary schools attempted to ease the transfer process for these groups of children at risk. Maintaining a primary ethos in the "rst year after transfer and gradually introducing changes during the entire year, rather than in the "rst few weeks in the new school, was said to have a marked e!ect (Nisbet & Entwistle, 1969). Dutch and McCall (1974), however, were less convinced of the e!ectiveness of this strategy. They agreed that compared to a control school, where pupils changed to a secondary style curriculum immediately after transfer, there were consistent though slight improvements in attainment, attitude, and personality measures. However, they argued that these outcome measures were confounded by other variables such as ability. Nash (1973) was also unenthusiastic about such schemes and argued that, in any case, so-called integrated approaches in primary school did not operate at the top junior end of the school. Therefore, there was little point in introducing and maintaining them in the "rst year after transfer. In summary, this set of studies identify the children most at risk from the transfer process as younger, less mature, less con"dent pupils; ones of non-academic disposition, often from a poor social and economic background. These children had di$culty adjusting to both the physical and academic organization of the new school as well as the standards of work, and experienced problems with pupil and teacher relationships. The most successful pupils were the academically able who were self-con"dent and more socially mature, and who tended to receive strong parental support (Spelman, 1979).

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3. The ORACLE transfer study The researchers cited in the previous section did not follow the actual events taking place during transfer. Most, like Youngman and Lunzer (1977), measured the attainment and attitudes of pupils while they were still in the feeder schools and then again after a certain time in the new school. The problem with this approach is that while it identi"es which pupils are adversely a!ected by the change it is unable to put forward detailed explanations of why this might be so. While therefore it alerts teachers to a problem it can only o!er limited advice on how best to deal with it. The ORACLE transfer study (1975}1980) adopted a di!erent approach. Pupils were followed into the new school from their feeder school, after "rst having been observed for two years previously in the primary school. The work was published in two volumes, Moving from the Primary Classroom (Galton & Willcocks, 1983) and Inside the Secondary Classroom (Delamont & Galton, 1986). The main focus of the ORACLE study was on the observation of teachers and pupils, but pupils were also tested in the "nal term before leaving the primary school and at the end of the "rst school year after transfer. Attitude inventories and a questionnaire measuring anxiety levels also were administered. Bennett (1976) "rst used the questionnaire, known as What I Did In School (WIDIS), in his study of formal and informal practice in the primary school. WIDIS was administered in the June before transfer, again in November, and again in the June after transfer. Thus it was possible to determine whether anxiety levels began to fall within the "rst weeks in the new school. In fact, the patterns of anxiety were very similar to those found by both Nisbit and Entwistle (1969) and by Youngman and Lunzer (1977). Anxiety was highest in June just before transfer, had declined in November, and had fallen further by the following June. An exception to this trend was found in the two schools that maintained a primary ethos throughout the "rst year after transfer. In both schools anxiety increased during the "rst year, reaching the peak just before the children departed from the primary area at the beginning of their second year in the new school. This "nding was attributed to the fact that setting and streaming started in year two and the pupils were clearly conscious of the importance of doing well in the end of the "rst year examinations. Further, being reorganized into sets and streams could result in being separated from close friends. Some of these friendships may have only begun during the previous transfer year. The main focus of the ORACLE study was on the curriculum * the way teachers delivered it and the manner in which the pupils responded to the way it was delivered. Eight target pupils (one boy and one girl drawn from the academic top, middle, and bottom of the class) were observed throughout the school day. Observations were made in every school during the "rst three days of the new school year when pupils were adjusting to their new circumstances. Thereafter, teachers and pupils were followed over the course of a single day at regular intervals throughout the transfer year. These observations con"rmed previous claims that, in general, there was very

 ORACLE stood for Observational Research and Classroom Learning Evaluation.

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little attempt to maintain continuity between the two phases with respect to either curriculum content or teaching methods. For the most part, teachers started again from scratch, either as a form of revision or because it was assumed that what went on in the primary school was not serious or disciplined work. In one example, an art teacher talked about the children engaging in `a bit of splash and funa while at their primary school. He continued by telling them that they were now going to do `serious arta and `really think about drawing and the basic elements of designa which were `line, colour, shape and forma (Galton & Willcocks, 1983, p.114). In mathematics, many children had to learn new ways of carrying out procedures such as long division and subtraction. They also had to master new terminology and were forbidden to use words such as `sharinga or `take-aways.a Instead they had to talk about `dividinga or doing `subtraction.a Subjects encountered for the "rst time gave rise to particular di$culties. Before transfer most pupils said that one of the things they were most looking forward to was science. When pupils were asked what `doing sciencea involved they talked about `doing experimentsa * of `making bangs and smells.a The reality, however, was somewhat di!erent. Typically, a lesson consisted of lighting a Bunsen burner, observing the di!erent colours of the inner and outer #ame cones for a few minutes, and then drawing a picture of the apparatus in their books and colouring in the #ame. They would then copy notes about the Bunsen burner from the blackboard or "ll in a worksheet and stick it into their homework books. In Home Economics, pupils who, in the primary school, had planned and purchased the ingredients for a meal for four and then cooked and served it, now began their secondary course by making a `hot snack and drink.a This turned out to be a slice of buttered toast and a cup of tea. During the "rst week pupils copied material from the blackboard, then drew and coloured in a teapot and a cup and saucer. To the ORACLE researchers, it seemed that the e!ect of this rather restricted curriculum diet was that some children began to concentrate less on the work. In the primary schools of the 1970s, much of the teaching involved interactions with individual children. The class would have a brief introductory period together before being sent o! to their tables where they either worked on their own or in groups, but on individual tasks. The teacher would then either rotate around the tables o!ering advice and checking progress, or call children out to the front of the class in order to mark work at his or her desk. When the teacher was involved with a particular group or an individual pupil other children, if minded, could relax in the knowledge that `Sira or `Missa had his or her back to them and could not easily see them. In these circumstances, the main way for pupils to slow down their rate of task engagement was to indulge in what the ORACLE researchers called intermittent working. This involved pupils working when the teacher was either nearby or periodically monitoring the class behavior. However, at other times they engaged in o!-task conversations, mainly to do with social matters such as what was on television or what they were going to do over the weekend (Galton, Simon, & Croll, 1980). In secondary school, however, pupils mainly sat in rows facing the front of the class so that they were under surveillance by the teacher for a greater proportion of time. To cope with this pupils developed a new strategy that the researchers termed easy

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riding. This involved giving the appearance of working while actually working as little as possible. In mathematics, for example, some pupils would spend considerable time ruling margins or underlining answers. In this way they avoided being given another page of sums to do because they had "nished early. In English, pupils might be told to write `at least two sidesa in their `rough booksa and then to correct it and copy it into their `best booksa for homework. Some children told the observer that they would `write biggera in such circumstances, thus covering the page with fewer words. This had the added advantage that teachers, rather than start a fresh topic, would often let anyone who "nished start making their `fair copya during the remainder of the lesson, thus cutting down on the amount of homework. Children who had occasionally indulged in intermittent working while at primary school now more often were observed easy riding. In this way a climate of low expectations was created. Teachers would come to feel that Wayne, Dean or Tracy had done well if they managed to do "ve sums during the period or if they managed a whole page of writing. One consequence of this lack of e!ort was that nearly 40% of the pupils scored less on the same tests of basic skills in June following transfer, than they did in the "nal term in their feeder school. An interesting feature of these shifts in attainment was the maintenance of pupil position within the class or set structure. Pupils who were in the top quarter of their class in the feeder school were still likely to be found in the same quartile of the set in the transfer school even though they were now grouped with other pupils, some from di!erent feeder schools. There also were greater di!erences between those pupils who made or failed to make progress after transfer in terms of the time they spent `on-task.a The picture that emerged was of sharper di!erentiation between pupils who continued to work hard in their new school and those who gradually eased o! and settled for expending the minimum e!ort. These di!erences between primary and secondary schools re#ected the di!erent teaching approaches used and the pupils' response to these varied strategies for managing their learning. After transfer, the easy riders could be contrasted with another group of pupils called hard grinders. These pupils, as their name suggests, worked extremely hard and were di$cult to distract. They were similar to a group at primary school called undeyected workers so named because they refused to be distracted by the other children sitting on their table. Whenever a conversation started at their table these pupils would remain silent and continue with their task. It appeared, therefore, that many pupils established their attitude to learning early in the primary school, but modi"ed their behavior in accordance to a particular teacher's approach. In the primary feeder schools, the pupils adjusted to di!erent teaching styles, while in the transfer schools they learned to cope with the di!erent subject specializations. In the transfer schools teachers often sought to slow down the quicker  One has only to mention such names to teachers to produce laughter and recognition that children named after "lm stars such as John Wayne, James Dean and Spencer Tracey tend to have problems in school. Whether this is an example of the teacher expectancy e!ect or whether naming one's child after popular "lm or TV stars is indicative of a particular social class has not been the subject of detailed research.

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pupils and speed up the slower ones in order to manage the class (or set) and avoid the need to provide enrichment tasks for the more able. One means of doing this, as we have seen earlier in the case of English, would be to start an activity in class and leave the slower pupils to "nish it o! for homework. 4. More recent studies of school transfer 7 Measor and Woods (1984) undertook another research study, adopting a very di!erent approach from the ORACLE one. These researchers used participant observation to study only one secondary school and one of its feeder schools and focused on pupils, not teachers. In addition to observation, unstructured interviews were carried out with pupils who were moving from an 8}12 middle school to a 12}18 comprehensive school. Much of their work con"rms the earlier "nding that the last term in the feeder school was characterized by high anxiety, tinged with excitement and `optimistic expectation.a Children used words and phrases such as `being frightened,a `worried,a `nervous,a and `scareda to describe their feelings prior to transfer. These utterances were particularly related to concerns about work, bullying by older children, their new status, and their separation from friends as a result of setting, banding, or streaming. Measor and Woods argued that what is at stake over transfer are basic questions about identity * pupils are shifting from the known, homely, cosy world of the feeder school to what they perceive as the largely hostile, unknown, and bureaucratic world of the larger comprehensive school. In making these adjustments, the children evaluate themselves against others, particularly those within their friendship networks. Making new friends during the "rst few weeks in the new school is, therefore, very important. Pupils in the Measor and Woods study found the induction day process and the parents' evenings helpful in dispelling some of the more obvious rumors and myths about transfer, but the anxieties tended to increase during the school holidays. The "rst few days of the new school, however, were generally rated as being routine and very boring. As in the ORACLE study, the anticipation of going into a laboratory to do science or using the gymnasium for physical education was rapidly diluted when these lessons turned out to be very similar to others, involving note taking, copying, and great emphasis on routines. Again, Measor and Woods found that the children's reaction to the di!erent subjects taught depended very strongly on the relationship with the teacher, although there were gender di!erences. Boys tended to react strongly against domestic science and the girls against physical sciences. Girls tended to show their opposition to the new school by using avoidance strategies, whereas boys tended to engage in direct resistance. Measor and Woods concluded that the `re-incorporationa into schooling is not as quick as many of the studies, including the ORACLE transfer study, would suggest.

 We are indebted to our Homerton colleagues, John Gray and Jean Rudduck who contributed material to this section in a review on transfer and transition that was undertaken for the DfEE (Galton, Gray, & Rudduck, 1999).

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This concern with pupils' identities and the impact the `labellinga systems in schools have on pupils' self-image is a recurring theme of research on school transfer in the UK (Murdoch, 1982). Beynon (1985) has also looked closely on the development of teacher and pupil relationships. Like Measor and Woods (1984) Beynon found that judgments about one's teachers, based on initial classroom encounters, had more to do with the teachers' personalities than the quality of their teaching. Teachers who treated you `like a proper persona were well regarded. More extensive evidence on pupils' initial reactions to secondary school comes from a study by Rudduck, Chaplain, and Wallace (1996). Pupils from three comprehensive schools were followed from Year 8 up to Year 11. As part of a series of interviews, pupils were asked to recall, retrospectively, their feeling on transferring to the big school. In this part of the study Rudduck found that on looking back at the experience, pupils did not "nd the move was as dramatic as had been characterized by Delamont and Galton (1986) ten years earlier. Part of the change could be attributed to the increased e!ort made by secondary schools to help pupils `feel at home.a Induction days were more frequent and schools produced `user friendlya booklets to help new pupils `"nd their way arounda (Rudduck et al., 1996, p. 25). More importantly in Rudduck's view were the discontinuities in learning experienced by pupils. Only in Year 10, when the importance of getting some quali"cations in order to secure employment was more fully appreciated, did pupils come to see the value in building up good study habits in such matters as homework and attendance from the beginning. By then the realization that what was taught in the "rst years of secondary school could have a bearing on later performance came too late for some pupils to catch up and overcome the gaps in their knowledge. Rudduck et al. (1996) argued that Year 8, in particular, is a key year. Year 8 often lacks a clear identity coming as it does before the serious business of preparing for the National Curriculum Tests in Year 9. Year 9, in turn, is followed by two years of intensive preparation for the 16# examination. Lacking the novelty of the transfer year, Year 8 is regarded by many pupils as a `fallow yeara in which the `dynamics of friendship groups become all-consuming.a Thus, the school transfer process is but part of a larger issue, that of year-to-year transition. Each year pupils move to new teachers and fresh topics, both accompanied by the danger that some pupils become increasingly unable to manage the learning and fall further and further behind. In his survey of typical practices in several LEAs, Gorwood (1986) concentrated on the issue of curriculum continuity. He claimed that his "ndings strengthened the case of the middle school as a vehicle for ensuring smooth transition between a typical primary and typical secondary curriculum. However, his evidence was based largely on what LEAs claimed to do, rather than the kind of detailed observation of lessons undertaken in the earlier ORACLE study. The survey, carried out in 1984, demonstrated that transition was of increasing concern. Nearly 85% of the Local Education Authorities had organized conferences on the theme of continuity and 42% had produced documents listing various strategies for successful transfer. However, less than a quarter had advisers with speci"c responsibility for liaison, despite the fact that nearly three-quarters of LEAs responding said that they were experiencing some major di$culties with curriculum continuity. These di$culties were generally

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ascribed to the limited time available for managing transition, to teacher attitudes, and to the large number of feeder schools, including the scattered nature of some in rural areas. In some cases there were also general communication problems between schools and the LEA. One Chief Education O$cer reported that `there is too much for inspectors to do and they need to make considerable e!ort to overcome the natural inertia of schoolsa (Gorwood, 1986, p.160). Continuity was thought to be most successful in mathematics and least successful in the humanities. Gorwood's recommendations were eminently reasonable. They included the introduction of posts of responsibility for transfer (what is usually now called the `"rst year coordinatora role), greater liaison between primary and secondary head teachers, attempts to devise common syllabuses, and the passing on of pupils' work. The use of active tutorial worksheets during personal and social education was also recommended. Gorwood suggested, for example, that before transfer pupils should write down short biographies of themselves and of their class mates and raise questions about what it will be like in their new school. Examples of appropriate questions include `How many pupils will there be in my new class?a `How will the make-up of each class be decided?a `Where shall I go if it is raining at break time or dinnertime?a and `What happens if I do not like school dinners?a Subsequent reports would indicate that some of his recommendations were already well established by the time Gorwood published his review of LEA procedures. However, there has been disagreement about their bene"cial e!ect. Brown and Armstrong (1986), for example, studied the essays of 220 junior school pupils. These were written prior to transfer to "ve secondary schools and the exercise was repeated with just over a third of the sample once the pupils were judged to have settled into their new schools. Brown and Armstrong found that the array of negative concerns was much longer than the list of positive aspects before transfer but that this trend was reversed once pupils had settled into their new school. Commenting on such "ndings, Ruddock et al. (1996), as we have seen, argued that although on the surface children now appear to settle more readily, as measured by anxiety inventories or by essays of the kind reported by Brown and Armstrong (1986), a much longer process is also involved during which pupils come to terms with their identity and status as secondary pupils. Hence, there is a need to see transfer as a particular case of year-to-year transition and to give more attention to the latter issue.

5. The impact of transfer on pupil progress8 In a review of the 1975}1980 ORACLE transfer study Croll (1983) pointed out that between 40 and 50% of pupils had failed to make progress on standardized tests of English, mathematics, and reading comprehension at the end of their "rst year in the

 Again, our colleague, John Gray, collated the material for this section of the DfEE review on which this section of the article is based.

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transfer school (when compared to their performance in the "nal term in the feeder schools). In mathematics 45% of boys and 35% of girls failed to make progress. The corresponding "gures for English language skills were 56% and 44%, respectively, while for reading 57.5% of boys and 27% of girls failed to make further progress. The measure used was the raw score gain, that is the di!erence in absolute terms between the scores achieved by pupils on each test on two occasions. Each test contained 30 multiple-choice items taken from the Richmond Tests of Basic Skills (France & Fraser, 1975), a total of 90 items. When the scores on all three tests were combined then the average gain during the transfer year was 3.4 points compared to a gain of 7.5 points during each transition year in the primary feeder schools. Further analysis showed that the smaller gains after transfer were not merely due to `ceiling e!ectsa of the test in that pupils' scores at the end of primary school were so high that there was little room for further improvement. Neither did lack of progress appear to be a function of age of transfer, nor the approach adopted by a particular school. For example, schools attempting to preserve a primary ethos during the "rst year after transfer did no better and no worse, overall, than schools adopting a secondary style by introducing streaming and specialist subject teaching from day one. Irrespective of individual pupil gains or losses, however, there was a remarkable degree of continuity in terms of test performance relative to the rest of the class. Pupils in the primary school were classi"ed as high, medium or low according to their relative scores within the class. After transfer, pupils would be placed in classes with a mixture of pupils from other schools. In some cases they would be placed in sets or bands. Yet when the pupils in these new classes were ranked according to their combined score on the three tests, between 77 and 86% of pupils in the high group in the feeder school remained in the high group after transfer. The same was true of about two-thirds of pupils in the low group. The numbers of pupils in the ORACLE sample for whom scores for two years in the feeder school and one year after transfer were available were relatively small (less than a hundred), and the question of whether these results were generalizable to other transfer schools was therefore at issue. Unfortunately, few subsequent studies of school transfer included measures of pupil performance. A notable exception has been the Su!olk LEA which has monitored pupil progress in the age range 6# to 12# over a number of years. They have established consistent `dipsa in progress as pupils move from school to school (Su!olk, 1997). Evidence that these `dipsa do occur following transfer has to be inferred from other sources. OFSTED inspectors, for example, are required to estimate the degree of progress they expect pupils will make by the end of the year on the assumption that the lessons continue to be of a standard observed during their brief visits to schools. These ratings are then aggregated over all inspections and summarized in the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Schools. There are indications of a small dip in Year 3 of primary school, where only 35% of lessons were thought to result in pupils

 OFSTED is the acronym for the O$ce for Standards in Education, the body charged with carrying out inspections of schools, teacher training institutions and LEAs on behalf of the government.

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making `gooda or `very gooda progress compared to 38% and 37% in Years 2 and 4 respectively (OFSTED, 1999). Further evidence comes from the analysis of the Quali"cations and Curriculum Authority's (QCA) Key Stage 1 optional tests (Minnis, Seymour, & Schagen, 1998). In reading, only 52% of Year 3 pupils made one or more levels of progress compared with 71% in Year 2. In writing, the corresponding "gures were 44 and 66%. Finally, for mathematics they were 52% and 66%, respectively. At secondary level, however, Years 8 and 9 (rather than Year 7) were singled out for attention by OFSTED. On the other hand, the inspectors also reported on a steep rise in the number of unsatisfactory lessons in Year 7 compared to Year 6. At the beginning of the secondary school, pupil attainment was judged to be unsatisfactory in 50% of the inspections (OFSTED, 1998). Given that the pupils take the high status National Curriculum Tests at the end of Year 6 it is not surprising that performance was judged to fall o! the following year. The di!erent perspectives of primary and secondary OFSTED inspectors who may not be using similar criteria in reaching a judgement may exacerbate this view. Nevertheless, regardless of how these e!ects are evaluated, it is clear they are not of a large order of magnitude. This con"rms the pattern established in the ORACLE study (Croll, 1983) where the raw score losses were generally within one standard deviation for the test. For this reason it is important to talk about a hiatus rather than a decline in pupils' progress when they transfer to a new school.

6. The e4ect of the English National Curriculum In 1988 a National Curriculum was introduced into English schools and for the "rst time at the primary level the content of the curriculum was speci"ed in terms of statutory programmes of study. From the beginning, as recounted by Galton (1995), the National Curriculum debate was dominated by secondary concerns with only the token primary teacher being placed on various subject committees. Being in a minority, these primary school representatives were hard pressed to stand up to the secondary subject experts' views. Indeed, given the attitudes of secondary principals reported by Orsborn (1977) and Gorwood (1986), it was always likely that the main concern of those involved in the discussions would be to establish a syllabus for each subject in which content previously introduced at secondary school was `pushed downa to Key Stage 2 The impact on school transfer appears not to have been positive. Indeed, the survey by Su!olk LEA inspectors of what happened when pupils changed schools at the age of 9, 11, and 13 years concluded that, despite the introduction of the National Curriculum, there were serious discrepancies between the work pupils were given before and after transfer. In mathematics, for example, pupils who had achieved level 4 on the Key Stage 2 tests were engaged in tasks of level 2 standard after moving to the new school (Su!olk, 1997). Reports by the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA, 1995) point to similar problems. All in all, therefore, the problem of curriculum continuity at transfer appears to be a somewhat intractable one.

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Gorwood (1991), bringing his earlier work up to date following the introduction of the National Curriculum, has also argued that one of the main objectives of those designing the primary phase statutory programmes of study was to increase children's initial progress in secondary schools by introducing greater specialization at Key Stage 2, thereby improving continuity and coherence. He pointed out, however, that many secondary schools still appeared to start pupils on the same level, regardless of their individual achievement on leaving the primary school, and argued that the National Curriculum does little to solve this problem. Although the schools he surveyed now focussed to a greater extent on transfer procedures with the appointment of special coordinators to manage the transition, Gorwood suggested that discussions needed to extend beyond the teachers charged with managing liaison and those in Year 6 in the feeder schools. He recognized, however, that this approach involved issues relating to whole school policy in both sectors since `by their very training, teachers in our schools have been encouraged to maintain fundamentally di!erent philosophies of primary and secondary schoola (Gorwood, 1991, p. 23). Other critics like Marshall and Brindley (1998) and Morrison (2000) have pointed to the problems of comparability between levels of attainment at Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 as a major source of di$culty. In English, di!erences in perspective between primary and secondary teachers sometimes meant that the latter did not accept information passed on by Year 6 colleagues because it `was not relevant to their (secondary teachers+) understanding of English and the kinds of tasks they were asking pupils to doa (p. 125). Stables (1995) draws similar conclusions in her study of teaching in Year 6 and Year 7 design and technology lessons. She found strong discontinuities in the approach used in the di!erent sectors. For example, the ratio of pupil}teacher or pupil}pupil discussion to pupil listening to teacher was almost the exact reverse in Year 6 to that in Year7 classes. Like Marshall and Brindley (1998), Stables doubts whether more e$cient ways of passing on information about pupil performance on Key Stage 2 Tests, as suggested by SCAA (1995), constitutes an e!ective answer to these problems.

7. The ORACLE replication study Since the introduction of the National Curriculum, until recently, no systematic research of substance had been carried out examining the impact of transfer on pupils' progress. More evidence for the hiatus in academic progress at transfer is, however, provided by a recent replication of the original ORACLE research study, albeit on a reduced scale (Hargreaves & Galton, in press). Returning to the same schools and using updated versions of the same tests and observation instruments, some 300 pupils were followed as they transferred to Year 5 and to Year 7. The data for attainment in language, mathematics and reading is shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1 shows the percentage of pupils who did not make progress in absolute terms on each of the tests. Just over 45% of Year 5 pupils failed to answer as many mathematics items one year after transfer as they had done in their "nal term at the feeder school. For language and reading the corresponding "gures were 58% and

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Fig. 1. The transfer hiatus in pupil progress.

46%, respectively. For year 7 the hiatus was less pronounced with 34% of the pupils in mathematics, 42% in English language, and 38% in reading doing less well after transfer. For most pupils these di!erences were small (of the order of 3 or 4 points on a 33-item test). However, 12% of pupils at Year 5 and 7% at Year 7 made signi"cant losses of somewhere between a quarter and a third of the possible points. When all of these "ndings are taken together there is good evidence to suggest that transfer under present conditions results in around 40% of pupils failing to make progress during the year immediately following the change of schools. The ORACLE replication study also measured pupil anxiety, motivation, and enjoyment of school. Unlike the measures of attainment, data were collected in November of the "rst term in the new school, as well as in the summer terms preceding and following transfer. The results were presented in the form of residual gains. First, the scores obtained during the "nal term in the feeder schools were used to predict each pupil's score on the second and third administration of the instruments. The di!erence between each pupil's actual score and their predicted score was then calculated. A negative di!erence indicated that a pupil was more anxious, less motivated, or found the new school less enjoyable than they expected, while a positive di!erence indicated the reverse situation. Table 1 shows the e!ects of transfer, again for Year 5 and Year 7 pupils. In general, the e!ects are more marked in the older age group. Year 5 pupils reported that they enjoyed their new middle school and the level of enjoyment was greater than expected. In contrast, Year 7 students found their "rst term at secondary school only marginally more enjoyable. By the end of the year, however, their enthusiasm had seriously

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Table 1 E!ects of transfer on pupils' attitudes and motivation

Y6 to Y7 transfer Enjoyment Social adjustment Motivation Y4 to Y5 transfer Enjoyment Social adjustment Motivation

June 1996}Nov. 1996

June 1996}June 1997

#0.03 !0.49 #0.20

!1.81 #0.61 !0.56

#0.55 #0.30 #0.20

#0.96 !0.37 !0.52

declined. Changes in pupils' anxiety (social adjustment) were less marked. In Year 5, the typical pattern described in other studies such as Youngman (1978) in the UK and Wig"eld, Eccles, MacIver, Reuman, and Midgley (1991) in the United States prevailed. Small increases in anxiety levels occurred during the term immediately after transfer but they had declined by the end of the year to below the levels in the feeder schools. In Year 7, however, the situation was reversed, perhaps because towards the end of the "rst year in the transfer school pupils were being tested in order to place them into their appropriate Year 8 sets or bands. Finally, changes in motivation were identical in both year groups. Pupils were more motivated immediately after transfer, but motivation then declined during the remainder of the year. One other feature of these results deserves attention. Typically, we might expect strong positive associations between pupils' academic performance, motivation, and enjoyment of school, on the assumption that underachieving pupils "nd school less attractive and are not motivated to work hard. But in the ORACLE replication there was a small but signi"cant negative correlation between progress and enjoyment of school indicating that some pupils, although doing well academically, were being `turned o!aschool. When this "nding is combined with what is known about the phenomenon usually referred to as the `Year 8 dip++ (Rudduck et al., 1996), there are grounds for serious concern that these `middle yearsa of schooling may be exerting a disproportionate and negative in#uence on pupils' achievements and their subsequent subject and career choices. In particular science seems the subject where interest tails o! most dramatically following transfer, although the observations of Su!olk (1997) LEA advisory team suggests that there are reasons for believing that similar problems exist, to a lesser degree, in other areas of the curriculum. The science curriculum for pupils in the middle years of schooling has recently received particular attention from a special subcommittee of the Council for Science and Technology (CST, 1999). The negative association between attainment in English and mathematics and enjoyment of school, reported earlier, also applies to science. Some pupils do well in science examinations but report they do not enjoy the subject (Shrigley, 1990). The dip in attitude appears to be at its sharpest immediately after entry to secondary school (Hadden & Johnstone, 1983) despite the fact that one of the things primary pupils most look forward to is

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`doing experiments in a laboratorya (Galton & Willcocks, 1983). Similar problems appear to exist in the United States (Spector & Gibson, 1991). In the UK there are serious shortfalls between the demand for well-quali"ed science graduates and their availability (Smithers & Robinson, 1998). The Su!olk LEA inspection team noted that many of the tasks in the year after transfer required pupils to perform at lower attainment levels than had been achieved in the science tests in their previous schools. Usually the aims of the lessons were to introduce pupils to the use of laboratory equipment such as thermometers, measuring and "ltering apparatus, and, of course, the Bunsen burner. However, it was rare for teachers to situate the use of such skills within the wider context of an investigation. The ORACLE replication study came to a similar conclusion (Hargreaves & Galton, in press). One lesson, for example, consisted of "ltering dirty water, which took all of "ve minutes, after which the apparatus was put away and for the next thirty-"ve minutes, pupils copied the diagram and a written description of their experiment from the blackboard. Delamont and Galton (1986) described a similar lesson, observed nearly twenty years earlier. The e!ect on pupils can also be seen by examining di!erences in students' levels of time-on-task before and after transfer. In the ORACLE replication study (Hargreaves & Galton, in press) the observer noted whether the particular target pupil was fully engaged in the task set by the teacher. If a pupil was `on taska for seventy-"ve per-cent of these observations s/he was said to be `fully engaged.a Engagement levels before and after transfer in English, mathematics, and science lessons were then compared. For English the percent of pupils `fully engageda fell slightly from 64 to 61% after transfer. In mathematics, the decline was sharper (from 61 to 50%). In science, however, the proportion of those fully engaged fell by nearly half. Whereas the numbers fully engaged in primary school was on a par for those in English and mathematics at around 60%, after transfer the "gure fell to a mere 34%. Fully two-thirds of all pupils taking science were distracted for signi"cant periods of the lesson. The pupils' reactions appeared to be similar to those reported by Spector and Gibson (1991) in their study of Senior High School science in the US American students described school as a place where `you listen to teachers all day++ and where the teacher says `Here study this. There's a test on pages 114 to 139 tomorrow.++ (p. 470). The decline in work rate and the generally reported erosion of interest in science may, in part, stem from the high expectations pupils have of the subject prior to transfer. These expectations are fuelled by events on induction day where science is often included as part of a typical day's curriculum. However, these science lessons are most likely to consist of exciting demonstrations that create loud bangs accompanied by clouds of smoke and strange smells. This is very di!erent from the science pupils' experience in the following term where, typically, they are required to draw a picture of a Bunsen burner, colour in the #ame cones, and label the parts. In seeking ways to improve pupils' attitudes, the Council for Science and Technology (1999) argued that `e!ective teaching is likely to be more in#uential on pupils' attitudes and interests than curriculum materials or novel instructional techniques designed to a!ect thema (p. 20). The CST subcommittee's de"nition of e!ectiveness would require teachers to engage in `very high levels of personal support,a `strong

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positive relationships,a and to demonstrate `an ability to allow for di!erent cognitive styles and ways of engaging with the learning process among pupilsa (p. 21).

8. Some problems associated with transfer A number of explanations have been advanced to account for the slow progress that English schools have made in coping with the problems of transfer, particularly curriculum continuity and harmonization of teaching approaches. Although the intention of those who created the National Curriculum was to ensure continuity between the various key stages, few teachers feel that the links are satisfactory. In particular, the levels at KS2 are not thought to provide satisfactory indicators of what students might achieve at KS3. Furthermore, discontinuities exist in the ways that teachers at di!erent key stages approach their subject. We have already looked at the situation in science at KS2 and KS3 in some detail, but a recent study of English teaching a!ords another example. Whereas at primary level, the teachers' main focus was on literacy skills with the emphasis on creative writing, secondary teachers said that students' response to literature was their main concern (Marshall & Brindley, 1998). These di!erent perspectives had implications for progression, because according to these researchers, `secondary teachers did not recognize the information they were being given as relevant to their understanding of English and the kinds of task they were asking pupils to doa (p.125). These problems are reinforced by the notion of giving pupils a `fresh start,a which is commonly interpreted as `starting from scratch.a In many of the studies reviewed teachers voiced concern that the judgments of the feeder school teachers might unfairly label certain pupils and give rise to expectancy e!ects. Furthermore, current educational systems and school organizations sometimes frustrated the best e!orts of teachers to promote continuity through improved liaison. For example, the increased freedom of parents to choose a school outside the traditional catchment area has meant that, in some cases, the arrangement whereby six or seven schools formed a close-knit pyramid feeding into one or two transfer schools has unraveled. Faced with the increased costs of visiting more schools, it is not surprising that e!orts have been concentrated on ensuring that the move to `big schoola causes as little stress as possible and that children with `special problemsa are catered for. In this situation the head of year's role is mainly a pastoral one and s/he may be concerned that any e!orts to promote greater curriculum continuity on his or her part might be regarded as interference by heads of subject departments. These subject heads may have no contact with Year 7 pupils and those who do may see

 The National Curriculum tests are graded in levels at each key stage. In developing the tests, levels were "xed for each stage independently so that there is no guarantee that a level 2 at KS2 will be equivalent to a level 2 performance at KS3. In any case the long summer vacation and the `high stakesa administration of the tests at the end of a key stage suggests that pupils' performance after transfer will also be subject to a `summer dipa.

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a particular class for only two periods a week in some cases. There is little incentive, therefore, for these subject teachers to draw up teaching programmes that take account of the information passed on by the feeder schools. Even where attempts have been made to bring about improvements in curriculum continuity there is often little support at local level. As discussed earlier, few local authorities have, as yet, established regular monitoring systems, which would allow the progress of pupils to be followed across the various transition and transfer points. Even where feeder and transfer schools do carry out assessments of pupils' attainment and attitudes, the measures used are not always compatible across schools and, given the expertise available, the level of analysis may not be su$cient to identify important outcomes. Finally, the recent ORACLE replication study found that many features of transfer identi"ed twenty years ago by Galton and Willcocks (1983) were still much in evidence. Secondary teachers still retain untested assumptions about what takes place in primary schools. These either underestimate the demands primary teachers make on pupils, as when art lessons are described as `all splash and funa or make assumptions about the exposure of pupils to more sophisticated forms of learning. This view prevails despite the evidence to the contrary that much of the primary curriculum still consists of teachers talking at rather than talking with pupils (Galton, Hargreaves, Comber, & Wall, 1999a). As a result, some pupils become bored because of a lack of challenge (as in science and mathematics). In addition, where discontinuities do exist in methods of teaching and learning (as in English), teachers sometimes fail to appreciate the need to explain to students the reasons for the change in approach. These tendencies by teachers from all stages of schooling to hold certain stereotypical views about `what goes on in the other schoola also have implications for identifying pupils at risk. In making judgments teachers may operate at a level of generality that results in particular individuals or groups being either ignored or targeted (Catterall, 1998). In Hargreaves and Galton (in press), for example, primary teachers identi"ed pupils at risk from among those who were `isolatesa and lacked friends, whereas, after transfer, those underachieving were typically identi"ed as problem students. This leaves open the possibility that some pupils who made adequate progress after transfer but who were not enjoying school might slip through the net. For similar reasons, students identi"ed in Rudduck et al.'s (1996) transition study who were failing, not because they lacked potential but because they had developed unsatisfactory friendships, might not receive necessary help. A key factor in Catterall's (1998) analysis of American pupils who recovered from early failure was the extent of institutional responsiveness to each student's perceived problems. Unless the traditional structures of schooling are altered in ways that allow a greater degree of individual responsiveness on the part of teachers, recent suggestions (e.g., modifying the presentation of key stage examination results, extending the number of liaison visits between schools, holding summer schools, or setting up joint projects in the "nal term before transfer (Squires, 1994)) are unlikely, by themselves, to eliminate the current `hiatusa in pupil progress at transfer. Our review of current practice con"rms that schools, over time, have become remarkably successful at

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smoothing the path of transfer and making the move to the new school less stressful and, for many pupils and parents, even something to look forward to. But these e!orts have, perhaps, led to the neglect of the discontinuities inherent in the process of transfer, particularly the use of di!erent teaching methods and demands made upon pupils by the varied approaches to learning that such methods require (Midgley, Eccles & Feldlaufer, 1991). In particular, the development of extended induction programs designed to help pupils cope with these discontinuities * what Lahelma and Gordon (1997) have described as `learning to be a professional pupila * have so far received little serious attention. These researchers, studying two urban secondary schools in Finland, argue that there is a tension between the need to socialize pupils into the rituals of secondary education and the concept of the individual who, in the interest of personal development and creativity, needs on occasions to break free of such constraints. Recent research in England supports Lahelma and Gordon's (1997) conclusion that teachers sometimes need to recognize that `students do not come to secondary school from nowhere. 2but2come laden with experiences from primary schools where they have been learning to become pupils for six yearsa (p. 134).

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Maurice Galton is a former Dean of Education at Leicester University and is now Associate Director of Research at Homerton College, Cambridge. He has published widely on various aspects of classroom practice in primary schools including the e!ects of class size, a topic on which he recently edited a series of papers for this journal. His latest book, Inside the Primary Classroom:20 >ears On, replicates research carried out two decades ago as part of the ORACLE project. Ian Morrison is Director of undergraduate programmes at Homerton College, Cambridge and contributed to the pilot stage of the Department for Education and Employment pilot study of Transfer and Transition. His research interests include pupil perspectives on transfer and peer monitoring.

Anthony Pell completed his doctorate at the University of Leicester having previously undertaken a masters course on Research Methods at Lancaster University. A former physics teacher, he now specialises in research methods and statistical analysis. He is currently a member of a project team on transfer and transition co-directed by Professor Galton for the Department for Education and Employment.