‘Transition’ is a word much bandied about in education circles. No, this is not about gender. Rather, when school staff talk about transition they mean that pivotal moment between primary and secondary school. This is the moment when a child moves from a small (average roll number of 280 pupils) and familiar place, probably within walking distance of their home, where they were the oldest and most important cohort; to a site often with five times as many pupils, where, aged 11, they are once again the pip-squeaks, braving strange new faces and routines, after most likely having travelled a long way from home (up to 8 miles in rural areas).
This step change is proving more challenging than anyone had previously suspected. According to a large national study commissioned by ImpactEd Group, as many as one in four secondary school pupils report feeling ‘disengaged’ from their secondary school. Many vote with their feet: the proportion of persistently absent students – one in four – continues to alarm government and head teachers.
Young people need help to navigate relationships in secondary school
Yet even those who do attend school seem uneasy. Students on free school meals feel excluded. One in three secondary school heads have received reports of bullying. And as many as one in three teenage girls feel unsafe in school.
How do we prevent secondary schools from morphing into a dark place that pupils find divisive and downright dangerous – and then avoid? Parents are key, according to Scott Caizley, Policy Lead for Education at the City of London.
We can’t leave schools to carry the burden of re-engaging pupils. We have to foster stronger partnerships with parents and carers to ensure children and young people see secondary school not as an optional space to pass time, but as an essential part of their development.
Two years ago, the City of London Corporation commissioned our charity, The Parenting Circle, to develop a parental engagement toolkit, for use in their 17 primary and secondary schools. Inviting local businesses into school to explain to children (and their parents) which skills they sought when recruiting; ensuring that communication was free of jargon; knowing local community activities and venues, the toolkit included plenty of suggestions for drawing in parents and carers.
It also conveyed some hard truths. Parents are key to their children’s behaviour in school, not just their attendance. Peer relationships, found and fostered in school, take on huge significance in adolescence, but they have grown fraught because young people are modelling the destructive behaviour they find online and – sadly – at home.
One in four young people have been exposed to domestic abuse at home: this not only affects their physical and mental health long-term, it risks compromising their own relationships, with many continuing the cycle of violence they grew up with. 12 per cent of children live in a home where parental conflict leads to one of the parents in real distress. Polling of UK adults in 2024 suggested that 85 per cent have viewed pornography. Out of these, many are likely to be parents, and most are likely to have watched online, where pornography is more violent and practices such as slapping, strangulation and biting now routine.
Against this background, is it any wonder that relationships in secondary schools have become so hostile that 45 per cent of boys believe that teenage girls ‘expect’ sex to be aggressive? Or that more than one in four pupils in receipt of free school meals are frequently bullied?
We can buck this trend. Not by relying on PSHE, which has been mandatory in schools since 2020 but is unpopular with students who find it lame (and their parents who find it woke). Nor by palming off this tricky task on teachers, mandating annual showings of the Netflix drama Adolescence. No, healthy relationships are too crucial to leave to amateurs.
‘We need to get the experts to deliver life lessons, including emotional intelligence, negotiation skills, internet awareness, conflict resolution,’ Julia Margo, Director of the Fair Hearing charity, said.
And we need to do this through evidence-based programmes, where the benefit is clear. Organisations like the Civil Mediation Council, For Baby’s Sake, and St Giles Trust have developed effective programmes that have broken abusive behavioural patterns. But far too few schools are taking them up.
Young people need help to navigate relationships in secondary school. Without this, they will continue to find the classroom toxic, the cafeteria scary, the playground hostile. So they will keep away. Time to call in the experts.
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