My daughter is terrified to go to big school

My advice as a teacher would be -
Tell the school she is particularly anxious about starting and they will tell her teachers to keep an eye on her and check in that she's ok.
Get a bag that isn't babyish and yes to the Nike AF1s or Nike courts.
She won't want to wear a coat.
Not having a phone will mark her out as different, and I think she'd feel a lot more positive about starting if you relaxed this. You can always take it off her at home and supervise her use of it.

Kickers shoes, plain rucksack, mobile phone

did she not have a transition day? Our school did , tour of school, taster lessons, met kids from their form etc makes it less scary.

Stop treating her like a baby… her fears are legitimate. As long as her shoes aren’t Clark’s she’ll be fine on that front, I’d go kickers.

Re the phone that ultimately your decision but I would let her have one.

please stop calling them play dates… kids her age hang out

Dont walk with her on her first day… let her walk with a group of friends

If you're getting a phone when she's 13, just get her one now do she's not left out and can start chatting with old yr 6 friends?

My older son arranged gettingbto school with mates on first day and younger son doing the same now.

Shoes - if allowed i imagine nike airforce style (or we get the similar cheaper nike ones from sport direct) will be suitably 'cool'?

Agree with others about language...sounds young (and uncool) - high school/sec school or meet ups/hang outs probably better. Can she meet friends for shopping, or in cafe without you there?

Maybe reassurance that high school isn't like American movies with bullying, nerds, mean girls etc (my son was really worried about that!).

Actually also regarding the phone. All my sons homework is in an app. And his timetable. And its got a featurw where the app is replicated on my phone and I can check the homework.
We also have life 360 on it so I can track him.
He also has his banking card app on there and they all go to a coffee shop after school sometimes or often there are sports things that he decides he wants to do on the day so he needs to let me know what he is doing.
I mean in my day we didnt have phones and I eoukd get home when I was home but its different times noe and I want to know what he is doing.
There is absolutely no way another parent will be contacting you to arrange for your daughter to come over to their house to spend time. Its eithet the kids arrange it on whats app then tell their parents what they are doing or she will be just not invited. Most people dont have landlines anymore either. So how will anyone ever speak to her??

Mine had to have a phone and a fairly new model to be able to have the apps to complete their homework. The alternative was no lunch and spending every lunch or break in using the schools computers.

Mine DD is too. The closer is gets and I am dreading the first day. I loathed to let her have a phone but they have all been meeting up in the holidays and I the keeping the connections with the kids she is moving up with is helping but she won’t try her uniform on and is starting to dream about it. It feels awful knowing she is so anxious.

Agree with the big school and playdates.
In secondary you eill not meet any of their friends parents or know them. They arrangw their own meets and drop ins to each others houses. I only meet them when my son requires a lift and then it is just a wave or the occassional chat. Tho other parents will not be getting involved in their kids social lives and arranging meet ups. I usually get a text from my son at the end of the day, can I go to Jacks house, or mum I am doing rugby after school tonight as Max is doing it. I say yes ot no depending. So a phone is important for socialising, at least a brick phone. Not every child will have one no, but the majority will. The right shoes and bag will help with bullying and hairstyle. Subtle things like the right parting. Also socks seem to be a thing now. Its knee length socks with the bow in our area that all the girls are wearing with their uniform.

I would definitely reconsider your thoughts on getting a phone. My dd is also entering y7 in September, her and her friends have been chatting non stop via their phones about starting high school and planning where to meet, who to walk with etc. She will be excluded from things because she’s not as easily contactable.

She has WhatsApp but I check it regularly. No other forms of social media.

It’s also a brilliant way of tracking where they are. Not sure if your dd will be walking to and from school but my dd is and her phone is now set up to send me notifications when she leaves home and arrives at school then vice versa.

You can't send her to school without a phone -- wouldn't you be worried, quite apart from how weird it will make her look? My mam got me a phone to go to secondary school specifically so she could contact me and we'd both feel safe, and that was over twenty years ago!

Please get her a phone. She may need some apps for school anyway, and she’s going to feel very excluded when others are arranging socials by phone.
it struck me that she’s worried about shoes and so on, did you let her have input into this? No child wants to be the one that stands out as different.

So you are going off third hand information and believing it when you are told by parents that they were monitoring the phone?

Hint: they were not and are too worried/embarrassed to admit it.

Stop calling it big school
Stop calling them play day
Give her a phone and let her arrange her own meet ups, without mummy being around.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear, the first I heard of these incidents was when the school sent out an emergency email warning parents of what had been reported.

I am on the parents WhatsApp and the schools Facebook group, that was where parents of the children involved were asking how this could have happened, as they could have sworn their child's phone was locked down and they didn't have access to them at night.

I agree with the comments here. My children are both secondary school age - I remember my daughter swapped phone numbers with lots of other girls she met on the transition day and they were messaging each other in the summer holidays which helped. She’s not allowed social media like Snapchat etc still now but being able to message her friends is enough. She chose her own shoes, bag etc. We also didn’t go on about it all summer, it can be a bit much. Good luck, I hope she can settle in and realise it’s not as bad as she is imagining.

Not sure if op is coming back - but aside from the phone / language / bag / shoes debates, my other suggestion would be for her to practice the journey to school and back alone, if she hasn't already (you talked about walking to school, I'm assuming you won't be walking with her every day). My DD will be going on the bus so she's had a couple of trial runs this summer without me.

Yes as the teaching staff are not there to belittle or mock the students! A group of year 7s you don’t know. So don’t know if there are any other issues. I would probably talk to your HOD so they could have a word, if I thought it was a misguided joke. But I might also speak to someone higher up if it was repeated undermining students. That is just not in the school culture where I am.

We are teachers, we are not there to play one sided jokes on students, especially the younger ones.

Yes, and though everything is on their phone they get also punished for looking at their timetable on it in the corridor. I always printed the timetable off and laminated it so DD2 could have it in her blazer pocket.

All the homework apps are a bloody nightmare as well, it just makes teachers set far too much homework and kids get absolutely buried in it. And it is making them use devices which are also a massive distraction, or which they are being bullied on.

I'm afraid school is really fucking scary for many kids these days as schools fail in the most basic ways to keep them safe. I hope OP's daughter does well, but be prepared. Also be prepared for the school to gaslight the shit out of you and make you feel like you have failed as a parent, when the failure is purely on their side. It's absolutely Kafkaesque.

I think you need to have confidence in your decision not to give your DD a smartphone. There is plenty of evidence of the kind of harm having access to social media and apps have at this point hence the Online Safety Act and the government’s continuing attempts to tackle these harms. Some platforms have said themselves that children shouldn’t use them.

A brick phone for texts and making calls might be reasonable for chatting and arranging meet ups.

I think your DD is still suffering the emotional effects of the previous bullying. I’d try and keep reminding her that just because something has happened in the past it doesn’t mean it will happen again in the future.

(But, if she does unfortunately experience bullying at secondary, imagine how much worse it will be if the bullies have 24hour access to her through a smartphone!)

Agree with PPs that she needs a phone. That’s how they arrange their social lives, chat after school, etc. they’ll be swapping numbers and she’ll look weird that she can’t get involved. Sorry to be blunt but that’s the way it is. I’d get her a smartphone with just WhatsApp and strict controls and just take it away in the evenings/weekends when you don’t want her on it. But don’t make her the only one without one. Other parents saying their kids aren’t getting one, that’s fine but they’re few and far between and probably already have established friend groups or are very confident. Why make it harder?

re shoes most girls at DDs school wear brogues or loafers. DD last year in year 7 chose lace up chunky shoes but doesn’t mind having her own style. This year she’s following crowd with loafers.

I’d stop talking about it for now, enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Play it down and send her in brightly and confidently. Give her a couple of tips for talking to new people and remind her that everyone is new. If she has a bad first day remind her it may take a few weeks/months to settle in and find her people. Don’t get down with her, act confident that she’s in the right place and keep giving tips, ie: smile at everyone and say hi. Compliment the other girls on their shoes/hair/bag whatever. Be friendly and keep trying. It might take some time but she’ll get there.

If you knew this after the first incident why weren't you reporting it as a safeguarding incident?

You need to find a girl already at that school and make sure your daughter has the fashionable shoes, bags socks so she doesn't stand out. At our secondary it's Nike air force 1 and white Nike ankle socks over black tights. If she's been bullied previously then she'll want to be almost invisible with identical bags and clothes to everyone else.

And rethink the phone. All the kids arrange walking to school with each other and going out after school by phone. She'll miss out on loads. You can monitor it and put loads of parental controls on it, but let her arrange her own social life via a phone or she will be the weird kid.

OP why do you assume if day 1 is a bad day it’s downhill from there?! Think about it - that cant possibly be true ,otherwise the majority of us would have never gone to school!

I think not getting her a phone whilst well intentioned is a bit midguided. I reckon from my anecdata that 90% of year 7 have a smart phone.

She can build social networks and ask these questions.

If I was worried about a situation this is the first thing I would do (reach out and find answers- like you have here) she could be asking her friends about shoes and bags and meeting up.

Is she very immature??

I would report you if my child came home and told me you’d done that.

I would be speaking to the year head and the headteacher. Your behaviour is unacceptable.