This paper reports the findings of a study into a school-based initiative that aimed to raise standards of literacy through the introduction of an adapted curriculum. As such the focus of this paper reflects not only the school's concerns but also those relating to standards of literacy nationally. Moreover, this topic is particularly important as it concerns primary-secondary transfer, a place in which the issue of low literacy levels has become a focus of national attention and becomes even more acute for teachers and pupils.This paper forms part of a case study on the evaluation of the impact of a Literacy Support Initiative (LSI), a project, which targeted a sample of secondary aged pupils whose attainment on entry to year, seven was significantly below that of pupils of their age, and well below the nationally expected level four. As such these pupils were at risk of academic failure.The study has explored a broad range of questions related to both the project's implementation and its success, both of which provide an insight to the two main research questions: Does a Literacy Support Initiative (LSI) improve pupils' literacy? What are the attitudes and perceptions of the senior management team, teachers and pupils to the intervention? Unlike previous research in this field, this study presents an alternative way of exploring the participant's perceptions of the literacy support initiative through the use of phenomenography.The choice of phenomenography as a theoretical construct is based on the appropriateness of a methodology that incorporates multiple perspectives of the participants. In the study phenomenography is used to describe, analyse and understand the ways in which the participants experience aspects of the literacy support initiative. The point that sets this approach apart from many others studies into attainment at the point of primary-secondary transfer, is the principle that phenomenography seeks to investigate neither the phenomenon, nor the people who experience the phenomenon but instead aims to illuminate the relationship between the two.This paper reports on data analysed from sixteen individuals (eight teachers and eight support workers). Participants were interviewed individually in order to discuss their experience and perceptions of the Literacy Support Initiative. All participants were involved in the project: four of the teachers worked with pupils identified as being at risk and another four teachers with other pupils in the year group. The remaining eight participants worked in support roles with the at risk pupils only.This finding in this paper are crucial as they demonstrate how school managers are faced with difficult and immediate decisions on how best to support students within the realities of externally set standards and expectations, limited resources and imperfect research conditions. Although teachers' and support workers perceptions of the literacy support initiative varied, they all had the same goal in mind - that of helping pupils make a good transition to secondary school and of raising their literacy levels.Bowden, J. (1994). Experience of phenomenogreaphic research: A personal account: In J. Bowden and E. Walsh (Eds) Phenomenographic research in variation in method (pp 44-55). Melbourne, RMIT:EQARD. Bowden, J. (1996). Phenomenographic research: Some methodological issues. In G. Dall'Alba and B. Hasselgren (Eds). Reflection of phenomenography: Towards a Methodology? 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