The transition from primary to secondary school is regarded as one of the most difficult in pupils' educational careers. This article describes the results of a survey undertaken in the UK, in which the views of primary pupils, secondary pupils, parents and teachers were ascertained in regard to the transition process. Specifically, we sought to determine the concerns and expectations of respondents and also to establish the extent to which the views of the four groups were in accordance with one another. A total of 472 respondents completed the survey. Results showed that bullying was a major concern for all groups, followed by fears of getting lost, increased workload and peer relationships, among others. The concerns of British pupils were broadly similar to those reported in the literature for pupils in other countries. The views of primary pupils and their parents were highly similar, and if the experience of transition is to be improved, it may be necessary to focus efforts on both of these groups. Teachers rarely identified children's individual abilities as making a difference to the transition process, focusing instead on institutional initiatives, an emphasis that carries the risk of creating a degree of helplessness for individual pupils.

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These findings highlight the need to distinguish between children's road safety knowledge and their behaviour, particularly for teachers and parents, who may mistakenly believe that children who know more will be safer on the road.

The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the tooth-brushing behaviour of parents and toddlers, by analysis of tooth-brushing sessions videotaped in families’ homes. Eighteen families (self-selected from an ongoing preventive-intervention study) videotaped all home tooth-brushing sessions involving their toddler (average age 2.5 years) over a 24-hour period. The vast majority of families (89%) engaged in at least two sessions per day, usually supervised by mothers. The average length of the sessions was 142 s, although the brush tended to be in the child’s mouth for less than half of that time. On average, only 10 s were spent brushing the front teeth, 13 s the back teeth, and 29 s spent on non-brushing activities (e.g., biting brush, sucking water). Three styles of brushing were identified, and families tended to be consistent in their use of these styles: exclusively parent-led (least common), exclusively child-led, and shared between parent and child (most common). In contrast with these poor behavioural outcomes, feedback from parents indicated that they were generally confident that the sessions had been effective in achieving clean teeth. These findings suggest that home-based tooth-brushing activity falls far short of professional expectations. Tooth-brushing, even with fluoride toothpaste, may be seriously compromised as a method of reducing caries in toddlers because teeth are being brushed too briefly.

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