BESA CORNER
This month in our ongoing feature highlighting the work of the UK education suppliers’ trade body BESA, we hear from Pupil Pathways and Speech & Language Link.
Ensuring a smooth transition for every pupil
Every year, thousands of children move from primary to secondary school—a transition that can be both exciting and daunting. As teachers, we see first-hand how a lack of key information can make this shift more difficult for both pupils and staff. Without a clear picture of each child’s needs, strengths, and challenges, ensuring continuity of learning can be a challenge, and the opportunities a new school could bring might be lost. We know that schools like information early, as the sooner a secondary school knows about a child, the sooner they can start planning. A system like SixIntoSeven facilitates this early information transfer, ensuring that no child is left behind. By establishing a ‘corporate memory’, a shared source of key information, it prevents vital details from being lost during the transition process, helping to give pupils the best possible start in their new school environment. The benefits of using a system such as SixIntoSeven include: 1. Supporting vulnerable & SEND pupils from day one - Some pupils need additional support, such as those with SEND, or those facing personal challenges. With early insights, secondary schools can put the right interventions in place before term begins, creating a more inclusive and supportive learning environment. 2. Saving teachers time and reducing workload - The traditional transition process often relies on bespoke spreadsheets and forms. This can be inconsistent and time-consuming. A structured system, such as SixIntoSeven, streamlines this process, by enabling conversations to be better informed, concentrating on those pupils either party wants to discuss.
3. Making information-driven decisions - With access to structured, high-quality data, secondary teachers can make informed decisions about interventions, and pastoral care from the outset. This means more effective support for every child, whether they need additional help or greater academic challenges. Instead of spending weeks identifying pupil needs, teachers can implement targeted strategies from the first day of term.
4. Strengthening collaboration between schools - Great transitions happen when primary and secondary schools work as a team. A structured system promotes communication, ensuring that insights and strategies are shared effectively. This benefits not just individual pupils but the entire school community. By working together,
teachers can ensure that pupils experience consistency in their education, leading to improved attainment and well-being. 5. GDPR peace of mind - You would never let a child out of school without a full risk assessment, and nor should you do this with their data. All data transfer systems need to come with full GDPR compliance and be secure. This is particularly the case when pupils move outside of their local authority, perhaps to schools with whom there has been no prior contact.
Manchester City Council are implementing SixIntoSeven this year. Keith Bardsley, their Senior Schools Quality Assurance Officer, noted: “As a sector, we are incredibly data rich, but we are often not particularly data literate. We are awash with data that we do not often use. It is a common theme that primary schools tell us that they pass data into an ‘ether’, and it is lost. Similarly, secondary schools tell us they do not always receive the appropriate data.”
A strong transition system benefits pupils and teachers alike. It ensures continuity in learning, supports vulnerable students, strengthens collaboration between schools and inclusive practice. By using SixIntoSeven, we can help create a seamless transition process: one where every child starts secondary school with the support in place so they belong and can thrive.
For further information please contact us at
hello@pupilpathways.com or visit
https://pupilpathways.com/
Oracy: the importance of underlying speech and language skills Comment by YIN COLLIGHAN, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist at Speech & Language Link
The recent Independent Oracy Education Commission report recognised speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and how support of SLCN in school is essential if oracy skills are to be a realistic goal for all.
The report contains a timely warning with the current focus on “spoken” language not to conflate “fluency” with “good communication”. Communication, whether spoken, signed or using assistive technologies, is always underpinned by language skills. The Oracy Education Commission’s definition reflects the role of speaking and listening skills: “Articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.”
It is easy to see how these abilities are highly desirable, however, it is also easy to get ahead of ourselves, and without careful consideration of certain factors, we might find many students left behind: • Adequate attention skills e.g. maintaining, shifting and integrating attention
• Intelligible speech sound production • Understanding and use of a wide range of vocabulary • Grammatically correct sentence structures • Understanding of what others are saying • Being able to provide information in a narrative form With a large (and rising) population of children struggling to meet age- appropriate speech and language milestones, it is important that we consider the ‘nuts and bolts’ so we can realistically support our students to become the most effective communicators they can be. Practical tips: • Identify students with speech and language difficulties as early as possible, and understand their strengths and needs
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www.education-today.co.uk
• Consider how students who are having speech and language interventions can take their learning back into the classroom
• If a student has ongoing, significant speech and language difficulties, are there alternative or augmentative ways that they can get their messages across? Are your oracy targets realistic for each individual student?
• Ensure a communication-friendly environment, where all students are encouraged to participate and listen, and efforts are praised
• Observation during class discussions can support your understanding of what language skills could be practised to boost the class’s abilities
• Value listening as much as talking – being able to take in another’s point of view, process that information and build on what is said demonstrates great collaborative oracy skills
• Provide plenty of varied discussion opportunities – for example, paired work, group work, debates, presentations and news time as different skills are used for each.
• Use lots of explicit instruction and modelling around effective communication skills e.g. the use of formal language in certain situations, responding respectfully and confidently, how to articulate ideas well, use of body language and facial expression.
• Reflect on where students are struggling – do arguments break out during collaborative activities? Do some pupils take over conversations, whilst others sit passively and avoid talking? Do some children balk at the idea of newstime? Providing sentence starters, a visual structure for how to present information and selecting appropriate pairs and groupings may help in these situations.
• Ensure that the students have time to reflect on how their oracy work went – would they have liked to have contributed more in discussions? Were they happy with their presentations? What could have been done to make the session even more effective?
For more information, visit
www.moeducation.co.uk May 2025
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