DD2 started on Monday and is falling apart before my eyes each night. She's actually coping brilliantly in practical terms, which is fantastic, because she isn't great at organisational skills (awaiting ASD dx) and can be very forgetful. She's mastered catching the bus, coped with her friend telling her that they would catch the bus from a different bus stop than the one I told her to use because it was closer to her house (I disagree, but who am I to argue with a school child?), remembered how to access our new keysafe to unlock our front door and return the key to it, resetting the code. So many victories.
However, at school, she's struggling a bit. She chose to sit by the door in tutor class, because she would get the fresh air when the door opened, but everyone else piled towards the back of the room (because that's what kids do!) so there are 3 empty seats between her and the next child in the class. She's 'ok' with this, she says, and she can lean forward and talk to two boys who are in front of her if she wants to, but it does mean that she's not naturally going to make friendships in tutor class, because she's pretty much on an island. Her tutor has said that the seat they chose is 'their' seat.
She has different children in every lesson, so that will take time to get used to. She said that yesterday, they were sat around a table and had to work with partners to discuss something, but there was an odd number, so she didn't have a partner. I don't know why it didn't occur to anyone to make a 3 with her, or the teacher to say 'make a 3....', but she was just sat, alone. She said that a TA who was helping another child came and discussed the subject with her.
She's finding the numbers of children totally overwhelming. Her old school had 100 children. This school has 1300.
She is hysterical in the evening, begging me to let her stay at home, saying she doesn't want to leave me and saying she wants to be home schooled. I've told her that her school is safe, nobody has been unkind to her, or stolen anything, or hurt her. So right now, her feelings are very normal feelings and we need to give it time and try to settle her in. I've said that we're going to try to settle her in for at least several weeks, and if she's really not coping after many many weeks, and her teachers don't think she's coping, then we'll look again at what we should do, but we've got to try and give secondary school a really good go.