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What we do
Projects All Change! - Transition to Secondary School pilot project Background information This project was originally planned as a support process for young people in years 5 and 6 at Inkersall Primary School as they became concerned about transfer to Secondary School. With the head teacher of Inkersall, ROWA! envisaged a Buddy Writing project between primary pupils and secondary pupils to ease transition. We imagined that the younger partners and Buddies would write about the process of transition and that this exercise would help them to externalize their concerns and develop coping strategies through information provided by the Buddies. At around the same time we learned of other transition projects, including one led by Educational Psychologist, Ian Shepard, in Derbyshire, which indicated that some of the concerns may be influenced by family attitudes towards schools. At this point we included parents’ views in the plan and asked Ian Shepard to act as adviser. The funding for this project came from the Corporate Consultation Fund. We decided to use the information collected by the Buddies, and through discussions with parents, as a way of helping schools to reflect on how they tailor their transitional programmes, especially to harder to engage families. The Partners: ROWA! was the lead organization and provided the researcher with support on managing a Buddy Writing programme. The headteacher at Inkersall Primary School helped us identify pupils who would benefit from the intervention. However, we were also aware of disadvantaged families who participated in Family Learning, who were assisted by the Parenting Partnership which supported transfer and who sought help through Community School Nurses when problems arose. We asked providers of Family Learning, Parenting Partnership and Community School Nurses to work with us on this project, to help design the process and to identify participants. In addition the Cultural and Community Department (libraries) were interested in the role of cultural activities to bridge transitions, and offered libraries as neutral meeting places during the project. Springwell Community School was the secondary school which many Inkersall pupils attend, Springwell agreed to find the Buddies and support the Buddy meetings. Timing The pilot project ran from September 08 to December 09 with most of the visible activity taking place between November 08 and April 09 and again between September 09 and November 09. In November and December 08, participants were identified and Buddies trained. Between January and March 09, the first part of the Buddy project took place, writing up and presenting the issues, and responses to these, which bothered Years 5 and 6, and their parents. Parents’ views were also sought in this period and the first presentation took place in April. Between September and October 09 the same participants kept a record of their transitional experiences, again as a Buddy project. Parents' experiences were again sought. In November both parts of the project were brought together and developed as recommendations to help schools tailor their transitional arrangements.
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