Promoting progression between key stages 2 and 3

All teachers want pupils to do well when they move from year 6 to year 7. There is already much good work on developing progression and continuity in the core subjects across the key stages, and establishing shared understandings about practices and expectations. All primary school pupils follow the national curriculum programme of study for history at key stage 2. However, a concern is often expressed over the general loss of momentum that sometimes occurs between the end of key stage 2 and the beginning of key stage 3.

Teachers' drive to improve progression in pupils' learning has been shown to be a very important factor in ensuring continuity of pupil achievement. So, if pupils are to get the most benefit from their primary history work, they should experience a transition from primary to secondary school that:

• clearly recognises their achievements in history
• builds progressively upon them
• and provides tasks and activities, which build on their achievements in the primary years, rooted in notions of effective teaching and learning in history.

Progression in history between key stage 2 and 3 in the national curriculum involves pupils in gaining more sophisticated concepts about the nature of the study of history. They become more skilled in the processes of studying history through:

• developing an increasingly wider and deeper framework of knowledge
• increasing their understanding of historical language and terminology, and revisiting key general historical concepts and specific terminology in different contexts to make links, comparisons and contrasts
• seeing how different people interpret history in different ways
• developing a growing ability to use historical sources and beginning to use more complex ones
• improving their investigative, organisational and communicative skills, showing increasing ability to show independence, and an ability to explain as well as describe
• increasing their ability to formulate and answer historical questions, and return to them in different contexts
• showing an increasing awareness of the uncertainty of history.

In each of these areas secondary teachers can build on what has already been taught and learned, because pupils have had a far more common experience of history in their primary years.

This section of the website aims to provide support for teachers in secondary schools and their feeder primary schools, hoping to encourage continuity and maintain progression across the key stages. This information provides a basis for:

• reviewing existing transfer arrangements
• developing effective procedures, which improve pupil progression across the key stages
• developing professional links across schools.

The focus is on the benefit of primary and secondary teachers working together to develop shared understandings and improve continuity and progression in pupils' learning. If first, middle and high school arrangements are in place, the principles apply equally well as pupils transfer schools during a key stage.

The materials are organised in four sections.

Section 1 deals with what primary teachers and secondary teachers can do to ensure more effective progression and to support pupils in their history work when moving from primary to secondary schools.

Section 2 provides some examples of in-service activities that could be used by key stage 2 and/or key stage 3 teachers of history to encourage reflection on current practice in pupil transfer.

Section 3 provides secondary teachers with ideas that can be used to encourage continuity from year 6. These include a link to Unit 1 'Introductory unit: what's it all about?' from the DfES/QCA scheme of work for key stage 3 history along with two case studies of enquiries developed by schools on the 'The Neolithic Revolution' and 'Britain 1066-1500'.

Section 4 provides teachers with a pair of examples of pupils' assessed work, drawn from both key stage 2 and key stage 3, which illustrate achievement at both key stages.

The Historical Association’s transition project for key stages 2 and 3

The Historical Association, using funding from the DfES Innovation Unit, has published some materials to help primary and secondary history teachers with issues of transfer between key stages 2 and 3.

These include nine innovative schemes of work for use with year 6 classes supported by video clips, resources, examples of pupil work and training materials. The materials are freely available along with details of the transition project at www.historytransition.org.uk.