My daughter set off to her first transition day at secondary school this morning. As she pivots between her ‘primary’ and proto ‘secondary’ selves – all that has been great about her education, so far, seems at risk. If I had to boil it down to one distinctive feature, it is the space to grow in her own direction.
The space to make mistakes. The space to find your voice. The space to dream. The space to create something new. The space to learn something unexpected. The space to play with identity. The space to be, not an infant, not a child, not a teenager. The space to be pure potential.
At primary, partly because of the generalist staff and the need to nurture the youngest, there is a wide acceptance of identity, expression and rates of growth. My kids have attended Larkrise Primary all their school lives, and know no other. They have been loved, cared for, scolded, shaped and taken through a range of learning experiences.
Photo by Frank Fox CC Licence
My eldest, let’s call her LittleZeek, has found the social side of school life easy, but has at times bumped along the middle, sometimes struggling to match the excellence of her friends and peers. By the metrics we use in schools, she is above average, but not exceptional. Given her advantages, this is not a surprise.
However, Larkrise has allowed her to find her sense of success in the broadest senses, across the five characteristics that underlies the school vision: Confident, Caring, Creative, Celebrating, and Curious. And (thankfully) she has blossomed.
There have been years when the ‘teacher’ in me worried that both LittleZeek and LittlestZeek were falling behind or not heading in the ‘right’ direction. Staff were great in managing our concerns and responding in ways that helped us all.
Best of all, was the phrase that an experienced and wise Yr3 teacher used to describe one of my girls. She said:
“Don’t worry. LittlestZeek is a Popcorn child. She’ll pop in her own time… but not if we turn the heat up, or jiggle her too much. Let’s all be patient and give her some space.” She was, of course, right.
I do not know whether LittleZeek’s secondary school life will include teachers who can do this, but it seems that it will be less likely. Everything I have read, heard and seen of secondary school life seems to leave little room for children to find their own space to grow. Even lunchtimes are compressed into 30mins – and rushing to lessons where domains of knowledge are taught discreetly leaves little room for discovering spaces to grow.
I am not going to assert a load of neuroscience to prove my point, or generalise on anecdotes. I realise that a lot of this is just parental neurosis. Of course, LittleZeek had a wonderful first day at Oxford Spires Academy, and many thanks to Sue Croft and her staff for their welcome to our children and us as parents. I’m sure they will do a great job, within the terms of the secondary education model.
I wish we brought more of aspects of what is great about our primary model of education into the secondary phase – and gave our young people the space to blossom.
To all the Year 6s enjoying transition days this week, excited as you are for the changes and opportunities in Year 7- hold on to that space, and the expectation you need it, as you head into the Summer. Good luck to them all.