secondary ready-Our 'ready' stages
Rationale
Bligh Primary School is very aware of the need to ensure that our children are 'Secondary Ready'. After gathering the views of other stakeholders including secondary head teachers, preparing our children for secondary school has become a strategic goal for our school.
Our curriculum, from nursery to year 6, is designed from the children's end point. We ask, what knowledge do our children need and what skills do they need to have acquired in order to be ready for the next phase of their education.
This is in line with our strong belief that this will enhance our children's life choices beyond primary school and ultimately into adult life.
Findings.
It is a given that secondary schools and other stakeholders expect our children to arrive at secondary school in year 7 with a good level of development in reading, writing and mathematics.
Beyond this, stakeholders expectations of curriculum coverage is less clear. Procedural knowledge rather than traditional knowledge or fact recall would seem to be of greatest use and importance. In terms of content, these transferable skills have the greatest impact on a smooth transition for children. This is not to say that we don’t expect depth of knowledge. We believe this is important. However, if a secondary school takes from 30 different feeder primary schools, with a range of different learning experiences, often determined by the confidence and specific skills of their primary school teacher, you can understand why they have to make the assumption that children have had limited experience of the full curriculum.
The common themes that help children make the best transition and are most important for ‘Secondary Ready’ are those children who;
- Have had a range of different teachers in a variety of different subjects
- Are well organised and take responsibility for their own equipment and needs
- Are able to transition between different teaching styles and able to accept that teachers within the same day have varying expectations and teaching styles
- Have high expectations and pride in their work
- Have a sense of team achievement and thrive on rewards
- Have had the opportunity to lead in some sense
- Have good manners
- Are able to regulate their behaviour
- Can stay in their seats and only move around when permission is given.
- Focus on the procedural knowledge as well as national curriculum content
School actions.
The school has developed a 'Ready Strategy' for the whole school. This ensures that all children are always ready for the next stage of their education. Please click below for more information:EYFS, KS1, (Junior Ready).