Our paper deals with students` and teachers` experience of transition between primary and lower secondary school. We are predominantly interested in Czech students at the age of 11 or 12, when they leave the primary stage of the basic school and enter the second lower secondary stage of the basic school. At the end of the primary stage of the basic school Czechs students have two possibilities how to continue in their educational journey. They enter multi-year gymnasium or stay at the basic school and enter the lower secondary stage of the basic school. A number of researches concerning the transition to multi-year gymnasia have been done, but few researchers have been concerned with the transition within the basic school. However, the transition between primary and lower secondary school was identified as complicated point of basic education in the Czech Republic and other European countries with similar educational system. During the transition considerable social changes occur, an arrangement of teaching differs and many students are confronted with first serious failures.

The research topic emerged from the previous research (Dvořák, Starý et al, 2010), which was devoted to the school as an institution, and several questions were raised. We tried to answer the questions in the presented research that was part of a larger research. The research question: ‘How the students and their teachers perceive transition between primary and lower secondary school?’ We did not focus on objective description of different kinds of transition, which were described in Walterová et al (2011) but we were interested in subjective description of students` and teachers` feeling accompanying the transition, and what they see as the most important aspects, which contribute to the smoothest transition. 

The paper tries to discuss whether the arrangement of the teaching is as important as teachers stress it. The support of rebuilding the class collective at the beginning of lower secondary school, providing students with enough information related to the transition and better cooperation between teachers of primary and lower secondary school might be more crucial for the smooth transition. The lack of information and knowledge of their new classmates increase the students` anxiety related to transition more than expectation of worsening their school results and decrease of their free time.

There seems to be also a relationship between the nature of the teacher’s perception and their students` perception of the lower secondary school. The more motivating and positive about lower secondary school teachers are, the more relaxed and positive the students` attitude is.   

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