About going to secondary school

[Needforclean]

Ds will be going up to secondary school in Sept.

There are roughly 20 children from his primary going.

On induction day the children could choose 3 friends that they’d like to be in form with.

Ds chose Fred, John and Bill. He got put on with Fred and John and two other children that he doesn’t really speak to. Bill got put in a different class with the rest of the friendship group.

At the time Ds and Fred were like two peas in a pod, but since then Fred and John have paired off together well and truly and Ds just seems to drift between different friends.

Aibu to be a bit worried?

I know they tend to make new friends, but Ds has always found this hard, throughout most of primary he stuck with one boy and only in the last few years branched out into a bigger friendship group.

We’ve been told that they’ll be in form for all lessons apart from maths and English.

Yabu - don’t worry about it
Yanbu - ask for the class to be changed

I do try to support his friendships such as inviting children over

He's a bit past the age where you should be arranging his social life for him.

Let him make his own arrangements - inviting people over, dropping in after school, arranging to meet in town or to go swimming or whatever.

And don't panic if he hasn't found a best friend by the end of term. There are a lot of new people to get to know.

But if someone asks him to go to a lunchtime or after school club or some other activity, encourage him to say yes even if he's not sure it's his thing. He doesn't have to go again if he really doesn't enjoy it.

DS was in form with 6 kids from his primary school. Hangsout with none of them now.

When I did year 7 form groups, we got information from primary schools and from the children. They were asked to put down the names of some people they wanted to be with and we agreed that there would be at least one in the same form. We also listened to primary school staff regarding who they felt should be together and who should be separated. Then, a mix of ability is needed in each form. When you have several feeder schools it can get complicated.

Please be reassured that it’s genuinely done with care and concern for a good mix of everything in every form. There are times when, after a few weeks, if something really isn’t working, changes can be made, but it’s not just a question of moving someone. If you move one, someone else has to move, then that may not work and so on and so on.

It really is something that’s done with care. Schools will make changes if absolutely necessary, but it really is a last resort after everything has been tried, given the effort that’s put into arranging the form groups in the first place.

My child went to secondary with 8 others from primary and 4 from extra curricular activities - none of the 12 were in his form group or any of his classes. Many of them were together in other forms and he was the odd one out. At the time I was a bit upset for him (not that he knew that) but it actually worked out really well - it forced him to make new friends at the beginning when they’re all new and trying to make friends, instead of clinging to people he knew at primary. By end of yr seven he was still friends with several primary and extra curricular friends but also had a whole group of new mates too and he loved the form group he was in.

Sometimes these things are for the best, try not to worry about it. I certainly wouldn’t ask to school to move form groups around the whims of eleven year olds’ social connections.

If they moved him, they'd have to move someone else as well (to keep the class sizes equal) and that's not fair if they're happy with the current arrangement.

I didn't really know anyone at secondary school. There was a friend of a friend in my form (we had a mutual friend, but we were never at the same primary school ourselves, and I'd only met her a couple of times before). And someone I'd been at a different primary school with (I went to three) in one of the other forms. But certainly no actual friends. And it mostly stayed that way (I was on the edge of a couple of small groups at times, but they were better friends with each other than they were with me), because I'm autistic.

If he isn't, he'll probably have no issues making new friends. Or getting closer to the others again; things change.

You’re over thinking

its helpful to have familiar faces in the class from day one but not necessarily close friends
my ds who really is quite shy had moved away from his “primary buddies” pretty much by the first half term