Education Subgroup

Supporting Successful Transitions from Junior to Senior cycle in Post Primary School

Dublin City South Children and Young People’s Service Committee (DCS CYPSC) is tasked with improving outcomes for children and young people within its area through better coordination in the planning and delivery of services.  Children and young people experience a number of key transitions in their journey from childhood to adulthood.  Transitions in education include those from pre-school to primary school; primary to post-primary school; from living in care to independent living or transitioning from child to adult services.

Planning for and providing coordinated supports at key moments of transition can help ensure better outcomes for children and young people.  Better Outcomes Brighter Futures identifies strengthening transitions for children and young people as a national policy goal.  The most recent DEIS[1] plan (2017) identifies ‘supporting successful transitions’ as an area that needs to be further developed in order to achieve better outcomes for children and young people.  The Education subgroup[2] of the DCS CYPSC decided to explore successful transitions from junior to senior cycle[3] in post-primary schools.  Initially, the education subgroup decided to conduct a scoping exercise with all of the post-primary schools to examine the issue of transitions from junior to senior cycle.  A short questionnaire was sent to all post-primary schools in the area and the data received from individuals schools were grouped together so that no individual school can be identified.

Following this, two focus groups were conducted with a number of young people in order to explore their views in relation to the transition from junior to senor cycle. 

A Report on Supporting Successful Transitions from Junior to Senior Cycle in Post-Primary Schools by Dr. Glenn Perry

August 2018

[1] Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools
[2] For this particular research project the Education Subgroup was made up of Glenn Perry, Nuala Nic Giobuin, Julie  O’Hagan, and Declan Markey
[3] The period of transition from 3rd year into either Transition Year, 4th year or 5th year

TOOLKIT to Support the Development and Implementation of Recovery Education 2020-2022