I n the drive to raise standards, the Chief Inspector has recently highlighted a particular aspect of schooling that needs attention – ‘dips’ in progress in years 3–4 of primary schooling and in year 8 of secondary schooling. Where the Chief Inspector identifies the dips on the basis of performance data we identified them on the basis of interview data, and where he explains them largely in terms of ‘unsatisfactory teaching’ we think there are grounds for broadening the explanation to include issues of school organisation and pupil motivation. In this article we argue that, at particular stages in their school career, both secondary and primary school pupils’ commitment to learning can become vulnerable. During post-transitional periods in particular – when pupils have adjusted to a new regime – organisational features of schooling can combine with developmental features to produce a restlessness which may affect moti- vation and performance. In exploring these issues we use Goffman’s concept of ‘school career’. Its value, as Goffman (1961, p. 119) explains, is its ‘two-sidedness’: one side is linked with such things as ‘image of self and self-identity’ while the other con- cerns the relationship of the individual to the ‘institutional complex’. Hence pupils’ time in school can be looked at not only in terms of chronological movement where the yearly passage to another class promises academic pro - gression but also in terms of social progressionand whether pupils’ enhanced sense of social competence and maturity is being recognised and respected in the day-to-day encounters of school and classroom. The year 8 phenomenon First we look at the situation in secondary schools, using our own research evidence to open up the issues. One study that we shall draw on 1 was con- ducted in three secondary schools – one in each of three Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in the Midlands and north of England. It involved one class in each school and the pupils were followed from year 8 through to the end of year 11. They were interviewed once a term and the interview data were contextualised through information gathered from teachers as well as 29 Exploring and explaining ‘dips’ in motivation and performance in primary and secondary schooling Chris Doddington Homerton College, Cambridge Julia Flutter Homerton College, Cambridge Jean Rudduck Homerton College, Cambridge