Transition - 'Move Up Stay Up'

Transition (ID 1124)

Miss Holroyd

Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning

Miss Holroyd
Miss Rutherford

Assistant Principal for Inclusion

Miss Rutherford
Miss Redmond

Aspire Lead

Miss Redmond
Mrs Drouet

EYFS Transition Lead

Mrs Drouet

'Move Up Stay Up' plays a central role within Kings Heath Primary Academy and is fundamental to ensure our children move into their next year of education with ease. Bridges transition model (Bridges 2011) considers 3 phases of transition that people go through when experiencing transitional change.

In the first phase ('Ending, Losing and Letting Go) people are highly susceptible to experiences of homesickness, isolation, depression, anxiety, unhappiness and confusion (Denovan and Macaskill 2013; Ramachandran 2011; Thurber and Walton 2012). In the second phase of transition (The Neutral Zone) many of these same feelings linger, with anxiety a key factor in how prolonged the negative emotional state becomes. In order to enter the third phase (The New Beginning) pupils need to have accepted and embraced the change that has happened.

MUSU enables pupils to experience a greatly shortened period of time in phase 1 of the transition process. In a traditional Primary School academic transition, the period of time between leaving one class and starting another is approximately 6 weeks. This means that for some pupils, particularly those who are most susceptible to anxiety, the transitional phase can last for a far longer period of time than is necessary. With the MUSU approach, pupils are able to experience their new environments almost immediately.

MUSU is a mechanism to prepare the children socially, emotionally and academically for their next academic year. It ensures all relationships between pupils and staff are fully established, that it eradicates anxiety for all and it allows a clear understanding of academic abilities which enables clearer planning for September. It also allows us to set high expectations, induct our system into their new year group and improves behaviour across the school.

musu whole school parent info 2023.pdf

Sharing our model of Transition

Educating Northants are a movement of local teachers & educators who believe in Northamptonshire and are optimistic and aspirational for its future. They represent teachers and children across schools and settings in the county, from nursery through to colleges and the university.

They held our first event on Saturday 30th March 2019. In May, KHPA bought Move Up Stay Up to the conference to share our transition model.