Transition Days That Set Year 7 Up to Thrive
The move from primary to secondary is one of the biggest changes in a young person’s life, and the research backs it up. Studies from the Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted consistently show a Year 7 attainment dip and a rise in pastoral cases across the autumn term following transition. Year 6 students arriving for their first transition day are often anxious, unsure who to talk to, and quietly worried about fitting in. A worksheet or whole-cohort presentation will not change any of that.
Our STEM workshops are designed to do precisely what pastoral leads, transition coordinators and Heads of Year 7 are actually trying to achieve. Within minutes of arriving, students are placed in mixed teams with a shared goal: build the robot, debug the code, fly the drone through the course. The focus shifts from “I don’t know anyone” to “our robot needs to turn left here”, friendships form naturally, and students leave talking confidently about a school they were nervous about that morning. That emotional shift from anxiety to anticipation is the outcome that matters most.
Every workshop is built around equalising students from different feeder primaries. Some Year 6s arrive having coded since Reception; others have never touched a robotics kit. Sessions are deliberately designed so that prior experience is irrelevant within the first ten minutes. This matters because transition activities should be levelling rather than exposing gaps, and because a student who feels they belong on day one is far more likely to settle, attend and engage right through the autumn term.
STEM Workshops for School Open Days
Open days and open evenings are your school’s shop window. Parents and prospective families are forming first impressions quickly, and a live STEM workshop is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate what makes your school stand out.
Imagine parents walking into your hall and seeing 30 students programming autonomous drones to fly through obstacle courses, or teams of children building and coding robots to compete in challenges. This is not something families forget. It showcases your school’s commitment to technology and innovation in a way that a prospectus or a guided tour simply cannot replicate.
Our workshops also give your existing students something genuinely exciting to participate in during open days. Rather than being passive tour guides, they become active demonstrators, confidently explaining what they are building and coding. Parents notice this, and it speaks volumes about your school’s culture.
Induction Day Activities That Build Connections
Induction days often struggle with the same problem: how do you get a room full of students who have never met to actually interact? Traditional ice-breakers can feel forced. STEM challenges work because they give students a practical reason to communicate.
In our workshops, teams of two or three students share a robotics kit and must work together to complete a series of progressively harder challenges. They have to discuss strategy, divide up tasks, test ideas and adapt when things go wrong. These are exactly the social skills that new students need to practise, but wrapped in an activity that feels exciting rather than awkward.
Teachers consistently tell us that students who have attended a STEM workshop together on induction day arrive in September with ready-made friendships and shared memories. That head start makes a real difference to how smoothly the first weeks of term go.
What a Great Transition Day Actually Achieves
When schools tell us a transition day “worked”, they are usually pointing to one of these outcomes. Plan your day around them, and the investment pays back right across the autumn term and into the rest of Year 7.
- Reduced transition anxiety: Year 6 students arrive nervous about starting secondary school. They should leave talking confidently about September rather than dreading it. The single most important emotional outcome of the day.
- Genuine social connections before day one: Students who walk into the September school gates already recognising two or three peers settle far more quickly. Friendship formation is the strongest predictor of a smooth first half-term.
- A level playing field across feeder primaries: Children arrive from different schools with different curricula, friendship groups and prior experiences. Activities should put every student on the same starting line within the first ten minutes.
- A clear sense of your school’s identity: Parents and prospective families form lasting impressions on transition and open days. The activities you choose are part of your school’s brand and signal what you stand for.
- A smaller Year 7 attainment dip: Research from the Education Endowment Foundation and Ofsted consistently shows attainment and engagement drop after transition. Strong, well-designed transition activities measurably reduce that dip.
- Reassured parents: Parents are anxious customers too. A confident, well-run transition day means stronger word-of-mouth, fewer worried phone calls in September and a more positive parent-school relationship from day one.
- Evidence for the Ofsted Personal Development judgement: Activities that build collaboration, resilience and problem-solving generate the kind of evidence senior leaders can point to in self-evaluation documents and during inspection conversations.
- Early sight of pastoral needs: Transition activities give your pastoral team a quiet window into students who may need additional support, friendship building, SEND adjustments or settling-in conversations, well before the autumn term begins.
Every workshop we run is engineered against this list. We are not just delivering a one-off activity; we are helping you hit the outcomes that make a transition day worth running in the first place.
How Our Workshops Fit Your Event
We know that transition days, open days and induction events all run to tight schedules with large numbers of students to manage. Our workshops are built around this reality.
- Flexible session lengths: Standard sessions run for one hour, but we can adapt to 45-minute or 90-minute slots to fit your timetable. Changeover between groups takes just 10 minutes.
- Large group capacity: Our Intermediate STEMbotics workshop accommodates up to 60 students per session. For a full year group, we run back-to-back sessions or parallel workshops on rotation.
- No preparation needed: We bring all equipment, set up before your first session, and pack down at the end of the day. All we need from you is a suitable indoor space.
- Rotation format: Many schools book two or three different workshops and rotate groups through them. This keeps the day varied and means students experience multiple STEM disciplines in a single event.
- Adaptable to any school layout: Workshops run in halls, gymnasiums, large classrooms or dining areas. We work with whatever space you have available.
For particularly large events, we bring additional DBS-checked instructors and extra equipment so that multiple workshops can run simultaneously across different rooms.
Popular Workshops for Year 6 & 7 Transition Days
Transition days, induction days and secondary open days all share the same audience: Year 6 students about to move up, or Year 7 students settling in. These four workshops are designed for that age range and are the options schools book most often for these events:
Intermediate STEMbotics (KS2-KS3)
Our most popular workshop for Year 6 transition days and Year 7 induction events. Students work in teams to build and program robots, tackling progressively harder challenges with sensors, conditional logic and multi-step coding. Designed so students from any feeder primary school start on equal footing — no prior coding experience needed. Accommodates up to 60 students per session, making it the natural fit for full year-group events.
View Intermediate STEMbotics details
Drone Coding (KS2-KS5)
The ultimate crowd-puller for open days and open evenings. Students program autonomous drones to fly through courses and complete missions. Nothing quite matches the reaction when a drone lifts off the ground following a student’s code. Groups of up to 30 per session, requiring a space with high ceilings.
AI & Machine Learning (KS2-KS4)
Students train machine learning models and use them to control robots. This workshop sparks brilliant conversations about AI, technology and the future, which makes it especially effective for open days where you want parents and students to leave with something to talk about.
View AI & Machine Learning details
Cybersecurity & Cryptography (KS2-KS3)
One of the most collaborative workshops we run, and a strong choice for transition days where team-building matters. Students work in pairs or small groups to break ciphers, crack codes and unlock the cipher safe through a sequence of escalating challenges. Pairs who have never met talk, negotiate and problem-solve together within minutes, which is exactly the interaction transition days are designed to create. Aligned to the Computing curriculum with age-appropriate content for Year 6 and Year 7 students.