Transitions and the Year 7 experience: A report from the 12 to 18 Project

This article discusses students' comments about the experience of shifting from primary to secondary schooling, and of their first year of secondary s chool. The material was gathered from research carried out in three Victori an primary schools and four Victorian secondary schools in 1993 and 1994. T his article discusses the meanings students give to their experience of tra nsition against earlier research and policy documents which use different m ethodologies and which talk of different cultures of primary and secondary schools. It argues that student reactions are more complex than are indicat ed by methodologies which take comments at face value and that their concer ns challenge some common assumptions about the problem of disruption in the break between primary and secondary. The article also notes widespread cha nges in students' lunchtime activities compared with primary school and dis cusses ways students assess the new curriculum and teaching styles of the s econdary school.