Exploring Transition: An Irish Perspective on Belonging and Well-Being following the School Move

The focus of this Literature Review and Empirical Paper is the topic of transition. The review focuses on establishing how best the process of transition from primary to secondary school can be supported for pupils in mainstream education.

The literature is reviewed systematically and findings from the review emphasise the effectiveness of Emotional Intelligence (EI) components in transition support programs as well as highlighting other relevant areas for consideration, such as baseline levels of EI and the efficacy of targeting support at both home and school level.

The subsequent Empirical Paper reports the author's exploration of Irish pupils' experiences of the transition to secondary school.

The aims of the study were to investigate pupil's levels of well-being and sense of belonging following transition; and to examine whether differences arose as a result of the varying levels of school support and gender.

The study employs the use of two standardised questionnaires and an amended version of a transition experience questionnaire used previously in large-scale government funded research in the UK.

The research firmly establishes the link between experiences of transition and subsequent levels of well being and belonging; and also implicates the role of school support as significant in overall experience of transition.