Starting ninth grade is not just another grade transition. For most students it is a major life change. Some don’t even survive the transition and become early “push outs.” For too many others, the emotional toll is high, and this exacerbates behavior and learning problems.
Besides the obvious changes related to school setting and instructional content, processes, and outcome standards, the move to ninth grade usually is accompanied by notable changes in role and status and interpersonal relationships. These yield significant shifts in self-perceptions and expectations and in what is valued by the youngster.
Thus, from a developmental and motivational perspective, eighth and ninth grades are critical times for transition supports designed to assure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed at school.
Such interventions must encompass programs to:
- Promote and maintain positive attitudes during the transition
- Anticipate and prevent problems
- Provide special assistance to those whose problems make it highly likely that the transition will be difficult to negotiate
- Monitor transitions in order to respond at the first indications a student is having transition problems
Successful ninth grade transition programs are built on the foundation of good schooling through the eighth grade. Eighth grade provides the opportunity for a variety of specific activities aimed at enhancing positive motivation about and capabilities for making the ninth grade transition. This obviously includes traditional broad-band orientation programs for students and their parents (e.g., packets, tours, and discussions clarifying basic info and dispelling myths). But a comprehensive focus on supporting the transition encompasses much more.
With full appreciation of what the ninth grade transition experience entails, support for transition also includes programs designed to deepen students’ knowledge and skills, increase social and emotional problem solving capabilities, and enhance student feelings of competence, self-determination, and connectedness with supportive others.
Examples
Special course and use of natural opportunities:
Offering a transition course in eighth grade and using natural opportunities throughout the school day to enhance specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to the transition.
Peer buddies:
Connecting eighth graders to ninth grade peer buddies during the last month before the transition or at least from day one in ninth grade. Such buddies would be trained to participate in orienting and welcoming, provide social support for the period of transition, and introduce the newcomer to peers and into activities during the first few weeks of transition.
Personalized programs for those already identified as likely to have difficulty with the transition:
Such programs need to be designed no later than the middle of eighth grade. They should be designed to develop an individual transition plan, with specific objectives related to both motivational and capability concerns.
Special assistance for those who don’t transition successfully:
Ninth grade teachers usually are painfully aware of students who are not making a successful transition. The school’s learning supports’ component should include a system for responding as soon as a teacher identifies such a student. Such a system should be prepared to develop personalized transition supports and specialized assistance as needed.
As with all good interventions, transition support should aspire to creating a good “match” or “fit” with students. This means attending to diversity among students with particular respect to how differences are manifested in terms of motivation, developmental capability, and actions.
Environments also should be redesigned to maximize opportunities to enhance competence, self-determination, and connectedness to value others and to minimize threats to such feelings. Particular attention needs to be paid to enhancing opportunities for social support, counseling, and advocacy by designated school staff (e.g., a homeroom teacher, a member of the school’s support staff) and to strategies for eliminating victimization.
Successful transitions are marked by students who feel a sense of connectedness and belonging, who are engaged in classroom learning, and who are able to cope with daily stressors.
Source: Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA
The Center’s Quick Find Online Clearinghouse has material on Transitions that provides helpful resources.
Go to: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/qf/p2101_01.htm
Among the sources you can link to from the Quick Find is the Center’s intro packet entitled: Transitions: Turning Risks into Opportunities for Student Support and a training tutorial entitled: Support for Transitions to Address Barriers to Learning