CURRICULUM CONTINUITY AND TRANSFER FROM PRIMARY TO SECONDARY-SCHOOL -THE CASE OF HISTORY

The transfer of children from primary school to secondary school has l ong been seen as a problematic area. The National Curriculum was depic ted as offering a solution to some of the transfer problems by providi ng for curriculum continuity across the primary-secondary divide. This paper reports the results of a study of curriculum continuity in one subject, history, now that a National Curriculum has been in place for several years. It reports that teachers continue to see problems with the transfer and that secondary school teachers still incline to a 'f resh start' approach to year 7 pupils. There is also some evidence of a lack of curriculum consistency within the secondary schools involved in the research, there are differences between primary and secondary schools in the range of teaching and learning methods employed, there is some decline in pupils' ratings of their experience of secondary ed ucation across year 7 and there are signs of some gender differences i n these ratings. The conclusion is that there is a case for saying tha t the new arrangements have not alleviated the problems associated wit h the transfer.