Supporting the Transition from Primary to Postprimary Education in 2021: Perspectives from Irish Postprimary Practitioners

Hilary O’Connor,Paul Flynn

doi:10.3390/educsci11090546

Abstract

The transition from primary to postprimary education is a significant milestone in children’s education and can be characterised by the multiple challenges that they experience, specifically the move from childhood to adolescence, from one institutional context to another, and from established social groups into new social relations. This research employs a theoretical framework that describes this transition from the perspective of secondary school inservice practitioners as they aim to help students to make a successful transition. An incremental, sequential mixed-methods data collection strategy took the form of an exploratory survey followed by qualitative semistructured interviews. Current transition practices in the context of the challenges presented in Irish secondary schools are reported on in five key areas: administration, social and emotional supports, curriculum support, pedagogical support, and management/autonomy of learning. The findings of this research also highlight a need to reflect on the purpose and timing of current practices, along with calls for continuing professional development programmes to be developed that specifically target the challenges faced by Irish inservice teaching practitioners. It is hoped that this paper will spark discourse relating to the development of transitional supports for students and associated training for those who are best placed to provide those supports.

Highlights

Using the five bridges of transition [10] as a framework, this study presents an examination of current practice and identifies potential gaps by asking the following overarching research questions:
(1999) [10], this paper focuses on the perspectives of postprimary teachers as the primary facilitators of student transition with a view to advancing our understating of the complex challenges faced in Irish second-level settings such as DEIS schools [31] and how providers of continuing teacher education in Ireland might respond
After an initial screening process to determine if respondents were teaching, or had taught in the past for a period of once a year or more, students who were in the first year of second-level education, the final number of responses was reduced to 55

Summary

Introduction

7), for what is a period of adolescent cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional transformation [2] This educational milestone is considered a crucial point in young people’s educational journey, a stage which can have a significant influence on subsequent academic and social development [3] often devoid of structured familial and school-based guidance on navigating a safe pathway between primary and secondary education [4]. For the students, this period of their lives can be tumultuous, characterised by anxiety, excitement, nervousness, and hope [3,5,6,7], often compounded by new environments, timetables, subjects, and norms all adding to pretransition and transition period anxieties [5,6]. In the Irish context, many students settle into life at second-level education with relative ease [3,8]

Methods

Results

Conclusion