Projects

Talking about School Transition (TaST) is the first intervention that exclusively focuses on supporting children’s emotional well-being over primary-secondary school transition. TaST is informed by preliminary qualitative research conducted with transfer children, parents and teachers in the UK and USA in mainstream and special schools (see above). TaST was also theoretically underpinned by Resilience Theory, in addition to a thorough literature review. TaST aimed to improve children’s adjustment over primary-secondary school transition, by encouraging children to draw on the support they can potentially receive from parents, teachers and classmates, and improve children’s coping efficacy. Further discussion of the theoretical underpinnings and evidence supporting the design of TaST, in addition to a description of the content and structure of TaST is outlined in Bagnall (2020). 

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The evaluation of TaST consisted of a longitudinal questionnaire based design investigating the efficacy of TaST in improving 143 Year 6 (aged 10 and 11 year old) children’s coping efficacy and adjustment over transition. It was assessed using the outcome variables: Emotional Symptoms, Peer Problems, Coping Efficacy and Transition Worries, in addition to a qualitative process evaluation. Results suggest that TaST had immediate positive implications for participating children who showed a significantly greater reduction in Transition Worries once at secondary school, compared to comparison group children.