WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY....
LEARN LESSONS FROM PRIMARY SCHOOL FOR BUILDING EFFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL TRANSITIONS
Comment by Dr JOHN ALLAN, Head of Impact & Breakthrough Learning at PGL Beyond G
oing back to school after the summer break involves a period of readjustment to school life. More so, the transition into secondary education for primary school children presents one of the toughest stages in their lifelong education.
WIn secondary school, the focus quickly moves to academic pressure and exams, often overlooking skills nurtured in primary years such as creativity, handling setbacks, building friendships, and developing a sense of belonging. Yet research shows that children with strong early psychosocial skills enjoy better long-term outcomes in education, work, and mental health. One striking example of the gap between primary and secondary is the drop off in experiential learning opportunities. Out-of-classroom experiences – especially in nature – encourage creativity, empathy, and problem-solving. A PGL Beyond study found 61% of primary school teachers feel their pupils have sufficient access to these kinds of experiences. Only a third of secondary teachers said the same was true for their pupils.
The unpredictable and dynamic nature of outdoor adventure (OA) makes it a powerful tool for developing the adaptability, resilience, and interpersonal skills pupils need as they move from primary to secondary school. Here are practical strategies teachers can use to harness the benefits of outdoor learning during the transition phase: • Plan early, involve pupils – Invite Year 6 pupils to help shape elements of the transition programme before the summer break. This gives them ownership, boosts self-determination, and builds excitement rather than anxiety.
• Focus on social bonding, not just orientation – Outdoor team challenges, environmental art projects, and orienteering can help pupils build trust and form friendships before academic pressures ramp up.
• Integrate cross-curricular learning into outdoor tasks – Blend numeracy (measuring distances on a walk), literacy (keeping a nature journal), and science (identifying plants or habitats) into activities. This bridges primary learning styles with the broader subject-based structure of secondary school.
• Build resilience through step-by-step challenges – Start with achievable outdoor tasks, then gradually increase complexity, such as moving from simple cooperative games to multi-step problem-solving in unfamiliar environments. This mirrors the increasing independence expected in secondary school.
• Embed reflective practice – After each activity, facilitate group or personal reflection to help pupils connect their outdoor experiences with everyday challenges.Outdoor learning, when aligned with a school’s values and curriculum, provides an authentic context for collaboration, self-reflection, and problem-solving – skills that underpin success in secondary education and beyond.
Outdoor learning, when aligned with a school’s values and curriculum, provides an authentic context for collaboration, self-reflection, and problem- solving – skills that underpin success in secondary education and beyond.
LANGUAGES: HAS FREEDOM OF
CHOICE LED TO DECLINE? Comment by FRANCES RODRIGUEZ, Languages Teacher at School Beyond Limitations
T
he recently reported decline in learning languages amongst young people, is nothing short of a catastrophe. Yet the truth is, if you allow children to choose whether to learn a language or not, it is usually in their nature to prefer a subject they perceive to be ‘easier’. The result of this is, those students who most need to acquire skills of critical thinking and understanding of how language affects everything, are exactly the students who will shy away from the perceived “difficulty”. Learning another language has, of course, enormous commercial benefits. But that isn’t going to inspire children in Year 9 to choose French at GCSE level. The Duolingo Westminster challenge ended with 65,000 language experiences being taken by participants, just proving what everyone knows – the vast majority of adults regret not knowing how to speak another language, with most telling their children’s teachers in parents’ evenings “I wish I’d worked harder at languages in school”.
The decline in learning other languages is also associated with a risk-averse culture; language exchanges have all but disappeared as a result, and it is those actual physical meetings between young people that can make them realise what fun it is to know how to say things in another language. Likewise, language learning is like handwriting in our modern world. Handwriting is gradually being replaced by tapping or typing, thereby limiting the development of fine motor skills in children. Language learning is being replaced by Google Translate and other computer-based translation tools. Yet, critical thinking is an essential part of learning another language; language learners have to engage with differences they’ve never encountered before. For instance, in Spanish you have to think about how you use the verb “to be” because there are two of them. With an inspiring and passionate languages teacher in tow, this becomes fun and an amazing world of discovery
September 2025
that can send children off on massive tangents during discussions – which is ideal and part of the wonder of how other languages open up our brains.
Some things just have to be part of education and in our AI-influenced world, more than ever before, we need our children to
understand how the words we use matter. One of the scourges of our young people currently is cyber bullying and using unkind language. Learning other languages means you have to stop and think before using words. Because fewer students are taking languages, fewer are taking them at GCSE and A Level, so fewer are studying them at university - and fewer are coming through the teacher training system as a result - and since education generally is a bit of a ‘Cinderella’ area for governments, this can result in the subject being quietly reduced “because so few students choose to study languages”. Despite this, learning another language teaches young people about their own language too. It makes them stop and think about the various meanings of words – for example, so many times I’ve had students express delighted surprise when they discover that “souris” in French not only refers to a squeaky small mammal, but also a mouse attached to a computer. When you point out to them that this is the same in English, the shrieks of excitement and the desire to discover, only increases further and this is certainly something to be encouraged.
www.education-today.co.uk 21
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