Students and teachers perceptions of an interschool Sport Education League for supporting transition between Primary and Secondary School

This article examines the reactions and participation of students (N= 209) and teachers (N= 6) as they participated in a project to improve the transition of students from Primary Education School to Secondary School. A Sport... [ view full abstract ]

This article examines the reactions and participation of students (N= 209) and teachers (N= 6) as they participated in a project to improve the transition of students from Primary Education School to Secondary School. A Sport Education League was developed, which included all the public Primary Schools (n= 4) and Secondary Schools (n = 1) of a Spanish town, was developep from the original idea of Hastie, Farias and Gutiérrez (2013). The main activities were: the implementation, during PE lessons, of a common and coordinated net game season, developed under the auspices of Sport Education; the participation in an online social net; and a culminating event that gather all participants during a whole school day in the Secondary School. Primary Education Sixth-grade students (N= 145; 6 groups) and Secondary Education fourth grade students (N=28; 1 group) became members of individual teams that became part of four clubs (Africa, America, Europe and Asia). The final event was organized by Secondary Education sixth grade students (N= 36, 2 groups). Data was collected by interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, self-reports and content analysis of the social net. Both teachers and students showed great acceptance of the project and agreement on its potential to achieve objectives related to facilitate the transition from Primary Education School to Secondary School, by the socialization among students that would be future classmates, and with older students. Main limitations were the low knowledge and experience of teacher about the model, difficulties in the temporal coordination of the different seasons, and the work load of running the social net.  

Important conclusions and recommendations for the design of a protocol to improve the transition from Primary Education School to Secondary School based on the sport education model were generated.