Children’s confidence and attitudes towards learning decline more during the first few years of secondary school than during the transition from primary to secondary, major new research has revealed.
While the potential pitfalls of moving from primary to secondary are well documented, the study of more than 31,000 children has found that pupils’ attitudes to school not only decline in Year 7 but fall much more steeply when they progress to Year 8.
The report Pupil Attitudes to Self and School, from test providers GL Assessment, highlights how the biggest decline in pupils’ attitudes towards school occurs after Year 7 and suggests that this may indicate lingering problems from the shift to secondary school.
“The decrease in positive attitudes is just as great, if not greater, between Years 7 and 8 as it is between Years 6 and 7,” the report states. “The implications are clear: ‘transition’ lasts a lot longer than one or two terms in Year 7.”
Let down in the early years
Ofsted has repeatedly warned of failings in how pupils are supported during the transition from primary to secondary school.
Last year, the inspectorate published a report on key stage 3, which said that too many pupils were being let down in the early years of secondary, because resources and staff were skewed towards older pupils taking GCSEs.
This week, Greg Watson, chief executive of GL Assessment, said: “Pupil attitudes to learning and school are crucial and we simply haven’t been paying them enough attention.
“We need to understand what happens to children’s confidence and self-perception as learners when they change schools.
“Parents and teachers won’t be surprised that significant numbers of children find the move to ‘big’ school difficult. But I suspect few of them will have realised just how long attitudinal problems can persist. That should worry us all.”
But the report - based on the company’s Pupil Attitudes of Self and School survey used by schools to learn about their pupils’ attitudes - found that children did not become more negative about everything as they aged.
The proportion of students saying that they were anxious about tackling new school work dropped from 35 per cent in Year 3 to 18 per cent in Year 9.
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Schools are very aware of the changing needs of students when they move from one year group to another.
“The transition from Year 8 to Year 9, particularly, has been quite a difficult one in terms of the assessment pressure building up.”
@teshelen