Focusing on pupils moving from primary to middle or secondary school, it describes and evaluates the schools' programmes to ease transfer, and includes material provided by the pupils themselves. The main body of the book is a rich and detailed account of the first months of life in new secondary schools, where the pleasures and perils of new friends, new teachers and new subjects, and a new approach to teaching are encountered. The book conveys vividly how pupils experience a new environment, and meet its dangers, rules and regulations, timetable, complex groupings and ideology. Inside the...

Drawing on the work of Vygotsky, the authors look at the social and emotional advantages children can gain from working together. They use case studies derived from the ORACLE II group work project at Leicester, and also take into account the advances made in collaborative group work in other countries. The result is a set of guidelines from which teachers can plan policies suitable for their own schools.