Transitions in Ballymun

On May 11th, Dr Paul Downes, Director of the Educational Disadvantage Centre in St Patrick’s College, was a guest speaker at the Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership seminar.  The Partnership intends to develop and implement a local framework that will support successful transitions from home to pre-school to primary to post primary school.

Other guest speakers at the AXIS Arts and Community Resource Centre Theatre, Ballymun, were Dr Hilary Fabian, Leader of Education and Childhood Studies at the North East Wales Institute, and Dr Mary O’Kane, Researcher with the Centre for Social and Educational Research in DIT and Lecturer in Child Development with the Open University.

Dr Downes’ presentation, Reconceptualising transition: The jolt in climate between primary and post-primary, argued that Bowlby’s observations in developmental psychology of young children’s defences of protest, despair and detachment offers a framework for understanding older children’s reactions to the potentially alienating process of transition from primary to post primary.

Last Updated: Thursday May 14 2009