Llantwit Receives Award for Excellence in Transition

Llantwit Major cluster have recently won an award from the Welsh Secondary Schools Association (WSSA) for the quality of transition between Year 6 and Year 7. Teachers in the 7 schools work together very closely to ensure that pupils move from Primary Schools to Secondary school with confidence.

  Rhws Primary, St Athan Primary , Llanilltud Fawr Primary, Eagleswell Primary, St Illtyd Primary, and Wick Church in Wales Primary are all 'feeder' schools to Llantwit Major Comprehensive School. Staff work together throughout the year and there are carefully planned links between the schools. Pupils from these schools visit the Comprehensive for 'transition days' in both Year 5 and Year 6. There are many other projects and programmes that run between the schools, staff and pupils. This year there is a drama workshop planned with Year 5 and a poetry project with Year 4. There will also be a school open day in mid June where parents are welcomed to the site to look at exhibitions, have an opportunity to take classes with their children, and to familiarise themselves with the school site together.

 Year 6 pupils meanwhile are looking forward to their forthcoming Llangrannog transition trip, and to starting their transition Passports after Easter. The pupils will collect stamps for the Passport between Easter in Year 6 and Easter in Year 7 to help them to make an effective transition, and to enable pupils, staff and parents to monitor this vital part of their school journey. This initiative has been sponsored by Cardiff Wales Airport, and the current Year 7's are looking forward to welcoming their Primary School teachers to our school to take part in their presentation assembly at the end of the month.

 On a deeper level, though, our transition has shown real collaboration in innovative  approaches to raising pupil achievement. In many schools pupils make slow progress in Year 7 due the significant changes in their school life. Our cluster has developed a shared approach to 'learning skills' so that pupils can begin to explore and understand them in Primary School, and continue to develop and reinforce their skills in Secondary School. We have also undertaken detailed observation and programme planning in literacy and numeracy where Year 6 and 7 staff have a joint approach which enables faster progress for pupils of all abilities.

 These developments alongside the launch of our new Student Support Centre (housing Pupil Parent Support Officers, inclusion officer, Support Centre Manger, to name a few staff) really have transformed the traditional understanding of preparing for 'transition'. On reflection there was a time when it really was only about making sure that pupils knew the basics, and inevitably moved to their new school with a 'head full of worries'. Our aim is to prepare our pupils as fully as we can and then to support and monitor them until they gain the independence and confidence to flourish in their new surroundings.