Message from BCC and BEP: Secondary school transition

Transition day

We know that secondary schools are keen to hold a ‘proper’ transition day to enable Year 6 children to visit their new school.  We are waiting for advice from Public Health England as to whether such a day can happen or will need to take place virtually. In the event that a transition day can take place, it is proposed that it will be on the first Wednesday in July as usual (7th July 2021). We will ensure the Public Health England advice is shared with schools as soon as it is known.

Common Transfer Form

A cross phase working party of school leaders have discussed the use of a Common Transfer Form and have agreed on additions to last year’s form. The updated form has been shared with a number of headteacher representatives and the process is:

• Secondary schools populate cell A7 and columns A-E of the attached form and send to individual feeder primary schools before May half-term. This will enable primary colleagues to ensure all Year 6 pupils have a secondary place.
• Primary colleagues then populate columns F-G and columns Q-AM and return to secondary schools by mid-June at the latest.  Please note this is PASTORAL information only.  Secondary colleagues felt that this information was necessary in order to create tutor groups prior to organising any transition days.
• At the end of June/beginning of July primary colleagues will populate the academic data for all pupils (columns H-0) and return to secondary schools by July 8th. This gives primary schools the opportunity to maximise lost learning time during the rest of this term.

We would be very grateful if schools could follow this process so that there is a consistent approach to benefit children across the city.

Reminder: Children Missing Education webinar 6 May 2021, 2pm

Next week we are holding a webinar on the CME process. Details of this were shared before the Easter break but schools are still able to book places using this Eventbrite link.

The webinar will take place on Microsoft Teams and a link will be sent to those who have booked places before the session.

The slides presented and a recording of the session will be circulated to all schools through this update.