ABSTRACT
The children we met in the last chapter all transferred to the same comprehensive. We followed their transition and monitored what happened to them in their five Mathematics classes. In this chapter we shall examine some of the transitions and explore the continuities and discontinuities between primary and secondary. Early in our work we were led to the conclusion that since girls were relatively good in primary school, there must be a falling-off in secondary school to account for their so-called failure which is so loudly announced. We hope that by this stage it is clear that we do not accept the kind of explanation that has hitherto been put forward. In none of our secondary work did we find simple falling-off. We concluded that the phenomenon had to be accounted for differently.
