Methodology
The lack of continuity between primary and
secondary phases has been estimated by numerous researchers, but
never statistically based. Nevertheless most researchers, teachers
and parents occupied with problems of pupils transferring from
the primary to the secondary phase consider, independently of
each other, some 10% of pupils to be affected by the problem.
A preliminary theoretical model at the beginning
of the LIPSS project assumed repeated and similar problems among
transferring pupils in quite different countries: UK,
Austria, Germany,
Cyprus and Poland.
After an exchange of experiences among teachers and researchers
from the partner countries, we considered the problem to be relevant
to various European schools, pupils, parents’ representatives
and teachers.
Next we supposed, in this theoretical model, which
transfer problems in the partner countries appear in a similar
form in schools in bigger cities as well as in schools in smaller
towns or even villages. With this the partners of the LIPSS project
provided the existence of a homogeneous model of transfer problems
appearing in a similar way in (quite) different schools and social
environments.
There is no need to prove sociologically that
there are, indeed, considerable differences between schools and
their transfer problems in smaller communities and those situated
in bigger towns and cities; differences may be based on the financial
situation of parents and children, mentality, social conditions
and educational level of the family, achievement orientation,
or even religious attitudes of the family. In the sub-projects
of LIPSS the participating schools were mainly situated in bigger
towns like London, Swindon, Vienna, Darmstadt, Nicosia, Warsaw.
As the only exception in this case we could mention the cluster
of schools in Bad Goisern. Bad Goisern is indeed a smaller town
as to the number of its inhabitants, but, considering the social
characteristic of the inhabitants, this small town is hardly representative
of the average Austrian schools situated in small villages where
inhabitants are occupied in agriculture etc. In other words there
was a danger in starting a project studying problems which at
the end might be not representative for all the partner countries.
It should be said that the representative ness of the results
is an important issue as one of the aims of LIPSS is to propose
and shape an European policy solving transfer problems between
primary and secondary phases in European schools.
Another important task at the beginning stage
was to verify the grade of importance of the problems caused by
the transfer of pupils in different schools in the partner countries.
All participants had agreed about the importance of the transfer
problems between both school stages causing some 10% of European
pupils to drop out. Partial investigation verifying the importance
of the problems caused by the transfer has been undertaken in
some partner schools and by some colleagues like by Jennifer Bell
in Hackney in London, as well as a questionnaire done by Dr Athena
Michaelidou in Nicosia.
Their common feature was to create a partial,
but concrete, set of characteristics of diverse problems appearing
at transfer, but they did not have the aim of studying more general
causes of these problems and did also not create a larger picture
of factors of a general nature in society at large: school, parents
and teachers which may have a negative impact on pupils at transfer
to secondary school stage.
Genuine sociological research which could study
most of the factors connected with the problems of the transfer
of pupils in European schools demands relatively sophisticated
sociological methods, verification of a huge amount of information
about pupils in various schools and countries, teachers, parents
and their interaction with numerous factors in society.
To data collection:
As already mentioned, the LIPSS project is a genuine
pedagogical one with a strongly pragmatically oriented aim: at
the end, based on the results reached in the subprojects of the
cluster schools involved, this aim is to work out a strategy for
a European policy solving transfer problems between primary and
secondary stage. In order not to complicate the methodology
with sociological tools usually used in sociological inquiries,
we agreed to base our further study of disturbed transfer primarily
on questionnaires, interviews with parents, teachers involved
in clusters, observations in clusters as well as discussion with
psychologists.
That’s why in the already proposed theoretical
model in Manual 1 we have been considering the idea of disturbed
transfer, not by using statistical proof, but basing results on
the rich experience of teachers, parents, psychologists and officials
concerned with the problem.
We have further assumed in the preliminary theoretical
model that there are rather multiple causes disturbing primary
and secondary transfer. We supposed not only lack of curriculum
continuity, or other partial problems based mainly in the school,
to be the cause of the disturbance. We rather expressed the idea
that there is an impact of a bundle of factors having their
origin not only in the school, but also in society, which leads
to transfer problems between primary and secondary school.
Then we divided the factors supposed to have any
influence on the transfer into two main groups: pedagogical,
concerned mainly with various problems within the school and the
curricula as well as sociological, pointing out the impact
of factors of more general nature as family, culture and religion.
According to the mentioned theoretical model we
considered following factors as belonging to the group of the
pedagogical factors:
- curriculum discontinuity
- poor cooperation,
or even absence of it, between teachers from both stages.
[1]
- poor cooperation
between teachers, parents and children.
To the group of the sociological factors
belong:
1. In
the family: not sufficient support of the parents for their
children being transferred. Many parents simply do not understand
that there could be a problem by the transfer. In addition to
this many parents do not control their children sufficiently,
due to a lack of understanding of the problem as well as due to
a lack of time for this. Especially in developing economies and
societies like Poland,
there is an increasing problem for parents under great pressure
from their work and employer having insufficient time to spend
with their children. The parents must be helped to understand
that their children undergo “…physical and psychical changes during
transition.” [2]
2. The cultural environment
is closed to the family and was also supposed to play an important
role during transfer. What was observed at the primary stages
of the project was that pupils coming from achievement-oriented
families, and from those having good social positions, tend to
overcome more easily difficulties at transfer than children coming
from poor families. Parents occupied in services, academic institutions
or just having leading positions tend to enable their children
to have better education as a condition for a better social position
in future. [3]
3. Religious factors
also have been supposed to have influence on transfer problems.
Most interesting, from a sociological point of view, was the inclusion
of Clapton School in London. In Clapton School pupils come together
from very different religious and cultural environments. To estimate
the influence of the religious and general cultural factor on
transfer problems, it is worth comparing at least two types of
schools: schools where pupils are coming from a homogeneous religious
and cultural environment, like the cluster schools in Poland,
Cyprus and Austria,
as well as schools where children from different cultural and
religious environments study together. Clapton School educates
many children of refugees escaping from war or political and economical
disturbances. In this case we have the influence of highly complicated
and mixed factors. The situation of such children is unique. On
the one hand we have the very traditionally oriented patterns
of education within the family, especially in families from the
East. But on the other hand we have the very strong influence
of the school with its European patterns of education, of the
new friends and not least of the every day life and mass media.
Pupils in this situation have different attitudes to school transfer.
4. Disabilities:Psychological
or physical disabilities also cause disturbed transfer. We mean
in this case only the lower degree of disability as well as hidden
disabilities. The model developed then considered also the different
abilities of the children as a factor which can cause a disturbed
transfer to the upper stage. But there is a small group of pupils
where neither teachers nor parents have found out that a child
being transferred could have any disabilities of a physical of
emotional nature. Such children are not handicapped to an extent
which can prevent a successful transfer. In many cases parents
or teachers can’t understand that such children need special care
for a certain period of time. Not providing help at the right
time during transfer could change the situation of the child into
a worse and long-term problem. In discussions with psychologists
there have been mentioned examples where children with a very
low degree of disability, like problems with hearing or with sight
problems, need at the very beginning more special care in order
to strengthen their self-confidence and achieve better results
during transfer in order not to drop out. After helping such children
to be transferred they continue as successful in their secondary
studies as completely normal children.
5. There is an ambivalent
model of attitude of primary stage students towards to secondary
stage of school. Psychologist point out on the one hand the fear
of changing the old class, friends as well fear of the unknown
new class. Many of the students transferred just fear the older
students or their “bad influence”. In this case the student makes
digressive development. We can distinguish the following stages:
fear, stress, frustration, depression, nervousness, aggression.
But on the other hand there is not only a fear
of the new teachers, classes and friends but also an element of
enthusiasm, of curiosity. It depends on the teachers
and parents to find the right way of helping the students and
support the more positive attitude to transfer to the secondary
school. Psychologists often point out the results of a well-known
experiment with two groups of pupils. Students on the same level
were divided into two groups. Teachers have tried to influence
positively or negatively both groups in advance, before asking
them to solve a problem. Students from the “negative” group have
been told that the task they have to solve is a difficult one
and that they are still not prepared to solve it. On the contrary,
the students from the “positive” group have been told that the
task they must solve is a difficult one but they can solve it
and they will succeed. The result was that the second “positive”
group was much more successful then the group with a negative
attitude. A programme started within schools during the transfer
could give similar results.
Which direction of development the student will go, the negative
or the positive one, depends only on the teachers and parents.
Another factor in the case of Poland
having impact on the transfer problems:
6. Educational
reform in Poland
in 1999: Due to the educational reform in Poland,
many schools have been closed and children living in smaller and
poorer communities have to travel every day by bus to their school
in another place (village or small town). Such children have to
spend more time traveling to school than children living in the
same place as the secondary school is situated. This means that
the children moving every day to school have a longer programme
during the day, which leads to less time for preparing for classes.
7. Social
pathology. Such factors unfortunately (still) exist and cause,
to a considerable extent in Poland,
disturbed transfer. To this kind of factors belong families suffering
from alcoholism, poverty or al ow level of parental education.
Ranking of the factors and their impact on transfer
to the secondary school stage according to the experiences of
involved teachers. Overview
Teacher perspective versus sociological perspective
Whereas the sociological point of view includes
a bundle of factors which may have an influence and cause disturbed
transition as described above, we realized during discussions
and experience exchanged with cluster teachers involved in the
subprojects, as well as by analyzing the articles in Manual 2,
that there is indeed another narrower point of view regarding
the reasons for disturbed transfer, especially regarding the question
how to solve it as well as who must mainly solve it.
We could call this attitude to the transfer problems
teacher perspective for it is expressed by almost all of
the teachers involved in the LIPSS project.
The teacher perspective:
This ranking has been
made on the basis of the experiences made by the partner schools
and participating teachers. It is worth outlining that most of
the teachers involved in the subprojects mainly see the reason
for the disturbed transfer in a very narrow perspective. Most
of them recognize in a first place the pedagogical and technical
reasons for the existing transfer problems. There is an exception
in two cases by Iacovos Psaltis and Jennifer Bell who mention
also the impact of family. Almost nobody from the other teachers
sees causes for disturbed transfer to the secondary stage in
circumstances outside of the school like family, social environment,
influence of cultural factors, special patterns of behaviour and
so on. Almost nobody proposes to solve this problem by means of
changing this factors. Instead of this teachers accept the disturbed
transfer as:
- Given (it has
been since ever and there is almost no reflection about broader
causes and complicated factors causing the problems of the transfer)
- Caused by the
school itself and the way of transferring the children to the
higher stage: (interrupted curricula, lack of curriculum continuity
between schools, weak or even non- existent cooperation between
teachers from both stages). According to this attitude most
of the cluster schools of the subprojects have tried to solve
the transfer problem by influencing these factors.
- Of course: the
only way to solve this transfer problem, at least to make it
smooth, is to change the interrupted curricula, to improve the
cooperation between the teachers or even to introduce such educational
system where no transfer, no school stages are provided.
- Differences
in teaching and learning methods in both stages. Explanation:
Secondary and primary teachers are trained in different educational
institutions which causes differences in their training. As
a result of this primary teachers do not see the continuity
of the education of the children, but tend only to reach their
“own” objectives. But the real aim of education of pupils is
not to finish the primary stage but to be transferred successfully
to the second and continue to study.
- Solution: To
create a cooperative model of educational processes between
both stages.
- Teachers in
both stages rarely cooperate with one another
That means teachers
(at least teachers involved in the subprojects) generally are
not keen to accept the idea of a bundle of factors having impact
on the transfer between primary and secondary stage.
Even more some of their statements try to neglect
differences between the genders, between the social origins of
the pupils concerned, as well as to study other reasons for disturbed
transfer like disabilities of children. Such a model is a simplified
one; maybe it really responds to the conditions of some partner
schools, is in some respect more convenient and (let’s say) is
the cheaper one. In other words when we consider the school and
the provisions of the educational system to be the main reason
for the disturbed transfer we must search for the remedies to
solve the problem within the same system.
Weaknesses
of this model:
It does not consider the influence of the family
(in many cases it is a real factor within families in Poland,
where children suffer from the alcoholic problems of their parents,
or just under the difficult financial situation in the family.
It does not consider hidden forms of disability,
such as problems with hearing and eyes.
It does not consider particular problems
of a single country partner in the LIPSS Project, like Poland.
As already mentioned in the particular case of Poland
the educational reform launched by the government in September
1999 has caused several changes in the organization of the educational
system which considerably changes the daily timetable of children
traveling from their home to a school situated in another village.
Proposals made by members of LIPSS
Overview
Most recommended solutions in LIPSS according
to the teacher perspective
Overview
The perspective of the teachers involved
in LIPSS contains very similar activities which could be summarized
mainly under the activities of the Induction Programme supported
by Jennifer Bell, Iacovos Psaltis and Athena Michelidou.
The aim of the induction programme proposed
is “to familiarise the student with her new school (buildings,
staff, structures, expectations), answer questions, deal with
concerns.” [4]
