Significant Factors that Affect Young Children Negotiating Transition from Primary to Secondary Physical Education

The significance of the transition from primary to secondary school in the United Kingdom (UK) and its equivalent elsewhere has been depicted both as one of the most difficult in pupils’ educational careers (Zeedyk, Gallacher, Henderson & Lindsay, 2003) and as a “key rite of passage” (Pratt & George, 2005: 16) in young people’s lives. Transition is often defined as “circumstances often arising from social and biological events that disrupts previously existing social equilibria” (Caspi & Moffit, 1991: 157). The term transition represents the time when a pupil moves between schools, usually primary to secondary, and presents children with a period of temporary adjustment that is complex and multi-dimensional, resulting in a number of social, personal and physical challenges (Elliot & Punch, 1991).