Research School Network: Academic Transition Building a Shared Language from KS2 to KS3

We spend years laying the foundations in primary school — nurturing vocabulary, building background knowledge, shaping confident learners. But what happens when those pupils reach Year 7 and suddenly the rules of the game change?

That’s the challenge of academic transition.

It’s not just about new buildings or bigger corridors. It’s the moment pupils encounter a steep rise in academic demand — new subjects, unfamiliar routines, and, most importantly, new language. Words like photosynthesis, inference, or hypothesis suddenly appear across the timetable. For some pupils, it’s a leap. For others, it’s a chasm.

We talk often about the social and emotional needs of pupils during transition — and rightly so — but we talk far less about the academic leap, particularly in terms of language. It was Jessie Ricketts’ research that helped sharpen our lens. She reframed the well-worn narrative of a ​“Year 7 slump” into something far more revealing: a ​“jump in expectations.” A jump in discourse, independence, and the complexity of vocabulary — particularly for our most vulnerable learners.

When we looked at our own city, we saw the same pattern. The gap wasn’t one of effort or care. It was a gap in shared language and structured support. And that’s where the work began.

As part of the Priority Literacy Project, we partnered with Derby City Council, the Primary and Secondary Strategy Groups, and the Derby Transition Group to launch a pilot academic transition project that aimed to close that gap.

This wasn’t just a training programme. It was a city-wide collaboration.

We brought together clusters of schools across Derby — Year 6 teachers, literacy leads, SLT, and subject specialists from secondary schools. The focus was clear: let’s confront the ​“vocabulary leap” head-on. Let’s build a shared approach to transition that prioritises disciplinary language, talk-rich teaching, and the continuity of knowledge across phases.

The project focused in on the last 100 days of Year 6 and the first 100 days of Year 7 — those crucial windows where curriculum, cognition, and classroom culture collide. And more crucially, it gave curriculum leads, literacy leads, and senior leaders the space they so rarely have: time to pause, reflect on the evidence, and ask honest questions about current practice.

We explored what it means to teach the ​“words worth teaching”, how vocabulary changes across disciplines, and how oracy can act as the bridge between knowing and understanding. From the Turn and Talk framework to vocabulary mapping, we looked at how we could strengthen curriculum pedagogy with language at its heart.

Because if we want equity, we have to talk about access.
And if we want access, we have to start with language.

We began, quite simply, by bringing people together.

In September, we launched the project with a full-day event — inviting all primary and secondary schools across Derby City to come together and form clusters centred around their key feeder relationships. This wasn’t about training to schools. It was about building a city-wide community of practice, rooted in shared curriculum thinking and a shared sense of purpose.

Before we began the formal sessions, we asked every school to complete a bespoke baseline audit. It focused on three key areas: their current approach to vocabulary instruction, the role of oracy in their classrooms, and their readiness for implementation. The responses told a familiar story: good intentions, promising practice — but very few shared definitions, and even fewer common frameworks across the key stages.

And so we began with a commitment: start from the same place.

Across five online CPD sessions, schools worked in clusters — meeting together virtually, using a collaborative Padlet space to share ideas, post resources, and continue discussion between sessions. The Padlet quickly became more than a document bank. It was a living network — a place to trial gap tasks, post examples of pupil work, and keep momentum going regardless of location or timetable constraints.

We began by building the knowledge base — anchoring our work in the most recent research. Our first formal session focused on vocabulary strategy, drawing from Quigley’s principles for depth over breadth and Beck’s emphasis on Tier 2 vocabulary — the rich, transferable words that unlock meaning across the curriculum.

We explored Frayer Models, etymology, and morphology as tools for explicit vocabulary teaching. Then came our first gap task: schools selected one curriculum area within their cluster and examined it with fresh eyes. What words were being taught? Where was the stretch? Were they really the words worth teaching?

The results were immediate — and revealing.

That discovery led straight into Session 2, where we turned our attention to oracy — not as an extra, but as a tool for vocabulary acquisition. 

We examined how through the Voice 21 Oracy Framework, we could begin having the strategic conversations that matter: 

How do we build a talk-rich curriculum? 

Where do pupils practise using new language?

How do we model disciplinary language out loud?

Each gap task moved schools forward. Clusters trialled oracy strategies in lessons, reflected on impact, and broke down the barriers that had previously held them back — often time, sometimes confidence, but mostly clarity. 

By the time we reached Session 3, we were ready to go deeper. This session focused on ourTurn and Talk framework — an oracy-first approach to vocabulary instruction. Built on the research-informed tools of the Frayer Model and guided by Quigley’s principles and Isabel Beck’s work, it gave schools a way to teach vocabulary through talk, not worksheets. We explored how it could be used not as a one-off, but as part of coherent curriculum design. And then the most exciting part: we began designing cross-phase projects. Clusters selected a curriculum area — History, Maths, MFL, Science, Geography or English — and planned how they might align vocabulary, pedagogy, and expectations across the last 100 days of Year 6 and the first 100 days of Year 7.

Although this was a pilot, the outcomes were far from tentative. In fact, some of the most meaningful shifts weren’t in the metrics — they were in the mindset.

From our initial baselines to our final reflections, we saw confidence in teaching vocabulary and oracy jump from 5/10 to 9/10. Strategic planning moved from the margins into the mainstream. Teachers began aligning key vocabulary — particularly in Science and English — across the phases. And perhaps most significantly, leaders began to talk about curriculum and language in the same breath.

But numbers only tell part of the story.

Of course, no real change comes without friction. Staff capacity was our biggest challenge — particularly in secondary settings. Some schools struggled to release staff for sessions, and in a few cases, this interrupted the rhythm of cluster collaboration. And in a system already stretched, the gap between inspiration and implementation remains real. 

Teachers left our sessions energised, but back in school, time and structures for dissemination weren’t always there. Without leadership backing, the most promising ideas can stay stuck on the Padlet. 

This pilot was never about finishing something. It was always about starting something well. We now have a clearer picture of what it will take to move from pilot to practice, from practice to policy: We want to invest in school clusters with dedicated capacity — so that collaboration isn’t dependent on goodwill alone. We are hoping to set up further collaboration in the future to build on the foundations that this project started.

Over the years of working with many schools on academic transition, the greatest lever for change we have seen is the power of shared purpose and structured collaboration. When schools come together — not just to share practice, but to co-design it — we see real change. Because language isn’t just how we learn. It’s how we belong.