Welcome to high school - By the way you've got a disease!

After my post earlier this week about the ways that high schools are trying to ease the transition to Year Seven, I was shocked yet amused with the stroy that Year Sevens in one school were told they could have a deadly disease and could be placed in quarantine...

Fortunately, the typhoid epidemic was a fictional scenario made up for a lesson in creative writing. But that news came a little too late for some.

New pupils at Bower Park School in Essex were told there had been a deadly outbreak of typhoid to 'liven up' a creative writing lesson. The lesson on the fourth day of term at Bower Park School in Romford, East London, left several of the pupils in tears. One mother whose son was in the class said: 'His teachers had told him they had to stay in school and be tested. If they had red spots or felt sick they had to report to the nurse straight away. Then they were told it was all a joke - it was a lesson in relaying emotions and writing about how they dealt with it. I'm horrified.'

The 11 and 12-year-olds were first told by their teacher there had been an outbreak of typhoid in the school. They were then told there would be a 48-hour quarantine, before the teacher explained that the set-up was a role-play exercise to stimulate creative writing.

Typhoid, which is caught through contaminated food or water, kills up to 30 per cent of sufferers if left untreated. Symptoms include a high fever, diarrhoea and sometimes a rash of rose-coloured spots and internal bleeding.

The lesson plan, entitled School Under Siege, was devised by a London-based teaching centre and has been used in at least one other school, in the Havering area of Essex.

Since it was taught at Bower Park School, the headmistress has had to meet with several concerned parents and explain to them that the lesson was part of a push to re-vitalise creative writing classes. Mary Morrison said in a statement: 'There is a massive push at Bower Park School to eradicate "passive learning" and replace it with exciting, creative lessons where students are active participants and wholeheartedly involved in their learning. The English Department introduced a dramatic approach to their Year 7 lessons with the outcome being that the students captured their feelings and translated them into a piece of dynamic creative writing. Unfortunately some of our Year 7 students believed the storyline that there was a local epidemic in the community, even though our less able students were told that the activity was role play prior to the start.'

She added: 'Lots of the children found it a very stimulating class. There were very few who were upset by it.'

I think there was an overreaction from some pupils and parents, but nevertheless, I guess it's a rather unusual way to break the new pupils in!

Moving up to big school

Already this year a few of last year's pupils have been back to school to let me know how they are getting on in high school. A wonder how many other high schools use the principles used in Loreto High School in Chorlton and Monks' Dyke Technology College in Louth...

Loreto High School in Chorlton, Manchester, is attempting to make itself more like a primary school. Pupils aged 11 to 13 are taught by the same teacher, called a personal learning tutor for every lesson - just as in primary.

A specialist teacher then joins classes for subjects such as maths, English, science and languages so there are two members of staff for 70% of the curriculum.

Headteacher Luke Dillon, a former primary headteacher who started at the school a year ago, says the school is trying to combine the best of the two. "We have appointed a few primary teachers, and they have gone down really well, crossing the big divide for teachers as well as pupils. Our personal learning tutors get to know the pupils' strengths, so when the maths specialist comes in, they can say that somebody is really strong on multiplication but struggles with subtraction, for example. They have an intrinsic knowledge of children's learning styles and aptitudes. If pupils are jumping around from ten to 11 teachers, you wouldn;t necessarily have that information. The children really appreciate it and enjoy it. It means that students are really in situ for a lot of the time. They're not spending five to ten minutes between lessons, and they are settled."

Lessons are a bit more fluid as well, says Dillon. "They can run over a little bit, without pupils having to make their way to another class. It's also a little bit like a primary school classroom as they can put artwork up. It's their space."

Meanwhile, Monks' Dyke Technology College in Louth, Lincolnshire, has come up with a novel way to tackle the problem of transition. Head of Year Seven, Steve Armstrong, has set up an e-buddies scheme, which allows younger pupils at 35 neighbouring primaries to e-mail older students with their queries and worries.

"When pupils used to arrive in September, they were still worried about the same things they were when we visited the primary schools months before," he says. "It was clear we weren't getting the message across and we thought, 'who do kids take most notice of? It's the people around them, not parents or teachers."

The scheme has been a great success, with about 40 children this year visiting primary schools and establishjing e-mail contact with older pupils they meet. Each student e-buddy has around six or seven younger pupils to look after. "They can e-mail the children directly and exactly the same things come up as they will around the country. They're worried about older children because they will be the youngest and the smallest; they're worried about getting lost and relationships because they're coming into secondary school where their classes and teachers change. There isn't the same familiarity on an hour-by-hour basis."

Mr Armstrong said, "We find that our e-buddies scheme does allay children's fears. Previously, children might have had their induction days in July and then worried for ten weeks. But now they can e-mail the children right through to the end of term. The feedback we get is that they feel more relaxed."

Transition for high school

The TES magazine reported on some of the methods of preparing Year Six pupils for the transition up to high school.

"It's busier than the rest of the year," says Ruth Kirkup, assistant head and Year 6 teacher at Dallow Junior School in Luton, Befordshire. "This idea that SATs have finished and that's it is wrong. But it is a good time."

The activities included teaching pupils how to tie a tie and preparing schoolbags, both vital skills in many high schools.

Other primaries cram in extra school trips, a creative arts week, an enterprise challenge, a show, a leavers' assembly and, increasingly, a school prom.

Lessons continue, with some schools using transitional units that pupils complete early in Year 7, some continue themes from earlier in the year, while others do entirely new work, or ensure any remaining gaps are plugged before the pupils move on.

Primary pupils who fear transition

One in six pupils feels unprepared for the transition from primary to secondary school, with many of them worried about being bullied. And their fears are justified: a quarter are likely to be bullied at their new school. Secondaries share their apprehension, rarely trusting information from feeder primaries. But pupils' anxiety largely disappears by the end of their first term, helped by several initiatives.

Researchers from the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education project found many pupils worried whether they would make friends or keep up with work at secondary.

Bullying was the key obstacle to transition. A quarter of Year 7 pupils had some experience of bullying at school, and a third of pupils with special educational needs said they had been bullied. Pupils from disdvantaged backgrounds found it hard to settle, with three-quarters struggling to get used to new routines.

Measures such as information booklets and open days helped to ease anxiety. Many schools used the same work books in both Years 6 and 7 to create a sense of continuity. Some schools ensured that the new Year 7 began a day before the rest of the pupils.

However, researchers said, "Secondary schools do not appear to trust the data on children provided by primary schools at Year 6 level, and this leads to a system of baseline re-testing of all children at Year 7."

High School Transition

Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, has said that schools must focus on managing the transition between primary and secondary level and provide parents with opportunities to learn about their children's education. He said the measures were necessary to prepare current Year 6 pupils for the 14-19 reforms. They will be the first cohort to benefit from the full package of vocational diplomas in 2013.

The paper also features an interview with Andrew Russell, the headteacher of Wyvern Community College in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. He reorganised his Year 7 curriculum after his staff spent a day in a local primary school.

"I gained a lot from my own day in a Year 6 class. Most of that was similar to what others noted, including the strength and depth of the relationship between the teacher and the class and how that was used as a mini-timeout when the class became restless after an hour of numeracy. I was also amazed at how they managed to stay focused for long periods on different activities. Finally, the amount of independence and 'freedom' to go off to various parts of the school to get on with work was revealing, especially when compared with the relatively little we used to give Year 7s.

"We restructured our school day to reduce the number of teachers seen by pupils in a day and to remove one lesson changeover. We restructuied the curriculum in Year 7 to reduce the number of teachers and lessons. Instead of having separate history, geography, RE and PSHE teachers, we now have just one humanities teacher to cover those four subjects for each class. We also combined English and drama.

"We set up a 'competency'-based curriculum focusing on common skills used across the curriculum and we have planned curriculum enrichment weeks throughout the year.

"In addition, to help make Year 7 feel like a 'school within a school' we gave them their own toilets, locker space and social area for break and lunchtimes. The impact seems to be a smoother transition, with the students feeling very settled far more quickly than we have found in previous years."

Underperforming at KS3?

The Daily Telegraph reports that, The Tories have released figues that should that thousands of bright 14-year-olds are performing worse than they did at primary school. Nick Gibb, Tory schools spokesman, said, "The figures indicate a that a number of children have not grasped literacy in particular by the time they leave primary school to such an extent that during the first three years of secodnary education they are not improving in their literacy levels. The figures also suggest some are not stretching able children either. Children leaving primary school with level fives really ought to be getting to level six or seven at 14."

The results seem to suggest that some primaries were coaching pupils to the test rather than ensuring they made real gains in skills and understanding. It also shows that some children are coasting through secondary school, where much of the teaching takes place in mixed ability groups.

Interesting...

Admission Day Letters

Today was a little nervous for Year Sixes as they were waiting to discover whether they had gained a place in the high school they were hoping for!

I tend to find (I don't know about you) but if a child doesn't get into their first choice then they usually do on appeal!!

Best of luck to all children with the high school decisions - I hope everyone gets into the school they hoped for!!

A third of high school pupils want their lessons to be harder

The Daily Mail (14th February 2007) writes that up to a third of comprehensive pupils say their lessons are too easy.

They have told researchers they want to be moved into higher-ability classes because they are worried that their work is not challenging enough.

As if this is something we didn't know already... How many of us have had pupils come back in to visit us and be told that high school is easy! I particularly find this so in Maths. You have to ask yourself why this is allowed to happen in high schools. So many strategies have been put into place in primary schools so that this won't happen. But my experiences of some high schools is that the children are sometimes allowed to drift in their first year or so.