In my opinion: Parents want more dialogue about Transition Year
Last month, a private, 'for-profit' school triggered controversy with a radio advertisement that took a cynical swipe at Transition Year. The National Association for Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD) was so incensed by the ad that it complained to the Advertising Standards Authority.
In case you missed the ad, two male students discuss their plans for the year. When one says he is doing Transition Year, the other replies, 'Shame, I'm going to Ashfield College. Straight into fifth year for me. Get this whole thing out of the way'. Further on, a crunch line proclaims: 'Get serious!'. The implication is clear: Transition Year is not serious. This grind school has peddled that line for years.
Below the surface of these exchanges lie vital questions about young people and their needs. It is no accident that the advert features young males and taps into doubt and uncertainty. Concern and anxiety generated by the 'points system' tend to relegate other goals of schooling to the margins.
A major challenge for schools is to blend personal and social development with academic progress. Transition Year is nothing if not ambitious. At its heart, the programme seeks to advance adolescent development: to improve self-awareness, social competence and active citizenship. It also aims to help students become more independent and focused learners -- in short, to help adolescents 'grow up'.
However, while most schools now offer Transition Year, a sizeable number of young people go, like the boy in the Ashfield advert 'straight into fifth year'. A complex web of issues lie behind this reality. These include changing views about schooling, perceptions of education as a commodity and a growing polarisation within schooling in Dublin.
Parents' understanding of schooling is shaped strongly by their own schooldays. For many, Transition Year is something new. One finding from research that I undertook for the Department of Education and Science, published last year, is that many parents tend to be open to the idea but need to know more about it.
Parents want schools to inform them and to engage with them about Transition Year: the programme; the thinking behind the various modules; the relationship with the Leaving Certificate.
Furthermore, at parents' meetings it is often presentations by young people recounting their experiences of Transition Year that really help parents understand the programme's aim.
The evidence also points to many parents becoming convinced of the value of Transition Year when they see its effects on their own sons and daughters. Parents warm to their children's new found confidence, fresh excitement in learning, the discovery of hidden talents, enthusiastic responses to new opportunities. They also appreciate what terms like 'independent-learner', 'decision- making skills' and 'more democratic classrooms' mean in practice.
The NAPD decision to complain to the advertising standards authority and stand up for a more holistic view of schooling is an important one. Their example should encourage schools to be more forthright in talking with parents about Transition Year, its rationale, its ambition, and about the purposes of schooling.
