The Transition to Middle School (continued)

• The need for curriculum articulation for all teachers at all levels should be clearly understood. Teachers from sending and receiving schools can meet to discuss curriculum and instructional practices.
• Teachers from receiving schools can visit the sending schools to initiate personal contacts.
• Letters can be sent home welcoming students and families, and inviting them to school activities.
• Parent Teacher Association members can call each new family welcoming them to the school.
• Guidance counselors and special education teachers from each school can meet to share information.
• Students of the receiving school can become "ambassadors" of goodwill. Student-to-student contact, preceded by a discussion of what information might be useful to new students, can help establish personal links. Sending-school students can be paired with receiving-school students for visitation days.
• Letters between students in the sending and receiving schools can be exchanged.
• Programs new to the entering students can be highlighted during student visitations.
• An unstructured open house can be held prior to the opening day of school; a structured evening open house can be held during the second week of school.
• A school handbook can be distributed to each family. Be sure to include phone numbers; school history; yearly schedules; teachers identified by grade level, team, and subject taught; bell schedules; lunch procedures; and other practical information.

The School Community

The students, teachers, administrators, parents, staff, business partners, and residents in each school community contribute to the establishment, communication, and refinement of the various factors that define their middle level school. Effective middle level transition programs establish a sense of belonging among the multiple constituencies involved, appropriately respond to the needs of the incoming students, and provide multiple opportunities for all constituencies to develop a meaningful role during the transition process as well as maintain that role throughout the school year.

Fore More Information

Anderman, Eric M., Hicks, Lynley H., & Maehr, Martin L. (1994, February). PRESENT AND POSSIBLE SELVES ACROSS THE TRANSITION TO MIDDLE GRADES SCHOOL. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, San Diego, CA. ED 396 193.

Anderman, Eric M., & Kimweli, David M. S. (1997). Victimization and safety in schools serving early adolescents. JOURNAL OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE, 17(4), 408-438.

Anderman, Eric M., Maehr, Martin L., & Midgley, Carol. (1996, April). SCHOOL REFORM AND THE TRANSITION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York. ED 396 440.

Anderman, Eric M., & Midgley, Carol. (1996, March). CHANGES IN ACHIEVEMENT GOAL ORIENTATIONS AFTER THE TRANSITION TO MIDDLE SCHOOL. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Boston, MA. ED 396 226.