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What advice do transition programme leaders give to educators building their own primary-to-secondary literacy transition plan?
Start by diagnosing every child on entry — not when they are already struggling. Involve staff from the beginning, align any digital tools directly to your transition work, and invest time liaising with your assessment provider before you choose a single instrument. Literacy is a human right: build your plan with that conviction at its centre, and never put a ceiling on what any pupil can achieve.
Liaise first, assess second — Graeme Finlay's case for slow, deliberate design
Graeme Finlay's core message is about sequence. Before any school selects an assessment tool, he recommends spending several months in careful dialogue with GL Assessment to design the reading strategy itself. The tool comes second; the strategy comes first.
That sequencing matters because the real value of diagnostic data — from instruments like the NGRT (New Group Reading Test) or the CAT4 (Cognitive Ability Test 4) — only emerges when the right people are asking the right questions at the right time. Finlay stresses that educators must be actively supported to interpret discrepancy data, not simply handed a report. This is exactly the kind of nuance unpacked in Education: Joining the Dots.
At Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust — 47 schools, roughly 12,000 children across four North East local authorities — around 70% of secondary pupils come from the trust's own primaries. That gives Finlay's team unusual leverage to plan transition assessments well in advance: the NGRT is administered in Year 6 over a three-week window in May and June, with all diagnostic data available by mid-June, months before the September start.
When CAT4 (cognitive ability) and NGRT (reading attainment) scores are compared, the difference places a pupil into one of five bands: expected range (middle 50% of score differences), higher or lower than expected (next 15% on each side), or much higher / much lower than expected (top or bottom 10%). These bands help teachers ask a precise question: is this child reading below what their cognitive profile predicts — and if so, why?
"Diagnose on entry, involve staff from the start" — Talia Caralambos on literacy as a human right
Talia Caralambos adds an urgent, values-driven dimension to the practical advice. For her, late intervention is a structural failure, not an individual one. The moment a child arrives at secondary school is the moment to act — and staff across the whole institution need to be part of that process from day one, as explored throughout this podcast series.
At Laidlaw Schools Trust, Caralambos works across 11 schools in communities shaped by high mobility and economic disadvantage — one school in Newcastle's West End has over 60 languages spoken by its pupils. In that context, a generic transition approach simply does not hold. Digital tools, when accessible, must be aligned directly to transition work rather than deployed in isolation.
Her sharpest instruction is also her most human one: never put a ceiling on a pupil. Framing literacy as a human right — not a measurable outcome or a compliance target — changes the entire posture of a transition programme.
"Don't wait until a child is failing to act. You need to diagnose on entry, involve staff from the start, and if you're fortunate enough to have digital tools that you can access, align that to your transition work, because it can be transformational."
Talia Caralambos — Director of English, School Improvement Team, Laidlaw Schools Trust
Caralambos relocated to the North East in April after training and teaching English and Media at Ritchie Diver Secondary School in London. She comes from a bilingual household and first taught English in India at age 17 — an experience she credits with sparking her lifelong commitment to equity and literacy. As Director of English across 11 schools at Laidlaw Schools Trust, she works in some of England's most linguistically diverse school communities, where over 60 languages are spoken in a single setting. Her work is featured in depth in Education: Joining the Dots.
Both Finlay and Caralambos converge on the same underlying principle: transition planning is not a one-off administrative task. It is a sustained, school-wide commitment — rooted in data, staffed by professionals who know how to read it, and guided by the belief that every child deserves to be understood before they are expected to perform. The full exchange is available in the Education: Joining the Dots episode on student transition.
See also
What is the 'six-week dip' in the context of student transition, and how do these trusts address it?
The 'six-week dip' refers to the period after summer where students readjust to school routines and may lose academic momentum, particularly in reading. The trusts address it by ensuring diagnostic data is available before September, so secondary schools can act from day one rather than waiting for pupils to struggle.
Why does Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust administer NGRT in Year 6 rather than waiting until September of Year 7?
Graeme Finlay explains that previously some secondary schools were administering the NGRT in September, which created a lag between identifying children who needed support and actually providing it. Administering the NGRT in Year 6 means all diagnostic data is available by mid-June — well before the September secondary start.
How does the Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust structure its primary-to-secondary transition programme?
Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust begins transition at the end of Year 5 with a large event called the Bishop Wilkinson Celebration of Sport at Gateshead Stadium, bringing pupils together across its 47 schools. The programme then builds through Year 6 with shared assessment and diagnostic data that feeds directly into secondary school planning.
Key takeaways
- Spend several months liaising with your assessment provider to design the reading strategy before selecting any diagnostic tool — sequence is everything.
- Educators need active support to interpret data like CAT4 and NGRT discrepancy categories, not just access to a report.
- Involve all staff from the start and align digital tools directly to transition work — deployment in isolation misses the point.
- Framing literacy as a human right — and refusing to put a ceiling on any pupil — changes the entire posture of a transition programme.
This answer comes from a real episode of Education: Joining the Dots. Hear Talia Caralambos and Graeme Finlay's full conversation on Listenly.
Listen to the episode on Listenly