Teach Primary Issue 18.5

for our children. This captures a range of details, such as their hobbies and what makes them special. For the handful of pupils who may find transition trickier, we offer more support. This involves one-to-one visits to their new school. They are taken on a walk around the school site, so that they become familiar with the layout, experiencing the hustle and bustle of break times and lesson transitions, and learning who among the high school students they can go to if they need support. We encourage these pupils to send postcards back and forth with their new contacts over summer term to continue strengthening this connection. Other pupils, who may struggle with the independence of high school, visit it using a walking bus from our school so that we can point out the safest route and discuss risks. We want the children to develop a familiarity with the school they will be joining, so we have a PE teacher from the secondary school deliver a weekly PE lesson for our Year 5 and 6 children. The session is run exactly as it would be at secondary school, so the children develop a real understanding of expectations. It also means they have another familiar face when they start in September. A safety net Whether it be during the Year 7 club or at any other time, there are a range of reasons why a child will come back to us for support. They might be struggling with the work or friendships, or have received a sanction. So we talk to them about what happened, and we might suggest role-playing the situation so they can try a different approach in the future. The most important thing is that they know they are Barwic Parade children even when they leave us, and that we are here as familiar, friendly faces they can turn to for support whenever they need to. The high school is very happy with the transition package we have put in place, reporting that it helps our cohort of children to settle and be successful more quickly. There’s more for us to do, and we’re refining our approach as we go; but it’s wonderful to know that for most of our children, they will go on to have a happy start at ‘big’ school. TP Jodie Morris is the attendance parent support adviser at Barwic Parade Primary School in Selby. She is a Licensed Practitioner with Thrive, which offers a whole- school approach to improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Jodie Morris With a bit of thought and planning, we can smooth the move to big school thriveapproach.com VO I C E S www.teachwire.net | 15 M y school serves an area of high deprivation, with more than half of our children eligible for pupil premium funding. We know that a successful transition to secondary school is crucial for our pupils to succeed in their educational journey and that, without a carefully designed package of support, we can lose some of them in that process through fixed-term or permanent exclusions. We are many years into our journey as a Thrive school and have been recognised as a Thrive ambassador school, using a whole-school approach to support our children’s mental health and wellbeing. We have six practitioners, including our headteacher, SENCo and myself. I support all pupils and families pastorally and run family Thrive courses to share our knowledge of child development and neuroscience. A step change We are conscious that we flood our children with Thrive support over the course of their primary years, and are mindful that when they move into secondary, this tight support network will be lost. Some of our children with gaps in their social and emotional development are very reliant on the relationships we have built; we don’t want them to lose that sense of safety when they move up to ‘big’ school. We began building our current approach three years ago, when we realised something needed to change. We initially enhanced our own support package by identifying those pupils who might find transition a little trickier, and working with them to understand what high school life would look like. We began running a Year 7 club during autumn term, where our leavers could come back each week to catch up with those key adults they were missing, and for us to listen and signpost them towards support. A passport to success Since this time, our transition package has grown year on year. We’ve built and maintained a strong relationship with the secondary school we feed into, and have designed a comprehensive approach together, building a strong team to support our Year 6 and Year 7 pupils. We invited the high school Thrive practitioner into our school and over a few sessions created a Thrive passport Creating a sense of safety around transition