How can I prepare my quiet/ small child for secondry school Any tips

7 replies

bananaknickers · 21/03/2007 10:33

He is very quiet and is small for his age. He is shy and has never crossed a busy road on his own.He is dyslexic and has lots of trouble telling the time.I worry about him coping with it all.He dosen't make friend easily.
Has anyone got any advise so I can start to prepare.

OP posts:

doglover · 21/03/2007 11:08

I'll be watching this thread with interest, BK. Ditto!

ElenyaTuesday · 21/03/2007 14:20

Bumping this because I'm wondering the same thing.

Sherbert37 · 21/03/2007 14:26

Has he had any help from the new school yet? Our local school takes those who may have problems settling (for whatever reason) and sees them once a week as a group from now. Might be worth requesting. There will be plenty of older prefects around I should think but getting used to different classroom and all the different subjects and teachers will be hard. Don't think telling the time will pose a problem as they all tend to move as a herd. Think contact with the school building and staff from now would be the best thing if possible.

frogs · 21/03/2007 14:36

Find out what the school's arrangements are for Y7 induction.

As an example, dd1's (state) school organised

(a) individual meeting for parents/child and the head around the middle of the summer term;

(b) new children's induction day some time in early July when the new Y7 could spend the afternoon in school, meet their tutor group and their form teacher and get an idea of the layout

(c) new Y7 and families barbeque on a weekend in July (this was organised by the PTA and was a fundraiser, but also served for the children to meetup in a more informal setting;

(d) Meeting for new parents in the first week of term, where it was laid out to us in no uncertain terms what the school's expectations were (!);

(e) outward bound day out for the new Y7 within the first week or two of the autumn term -- lots of teambuilding type activities;

(f) Informal social meeting for parents, new Y7 and teachers a couple of weeks into term, so you could meet the teachers, as well as your child's new classmates and their parents.

That is more full-on than most schools' induction programmes (the school is v. strong on pastoral care etc and is relatively small) but shows you what can be done to help kids settle in.

Original poster

bananaknickers · 21/03/2007 16:36

frogs that school sounds brill. I know ours has some activities in the summer term. I worry about him making his way to school on his own too. When I started school I knew lots of kids that were older than me and I walked up with them. We don't know any from here.

I just seemed so much more grown up and streetwise than him.He is so quite. He is so tiny about the size of a 3rd year child.

Any tips on how I let go. It's a big step and I was less worried about him starting school. Think the reason is when he starts secondry he will have to fend for himself. I don't spoil him or baby him it's just that he has a memory disorder which is to do with the dyslexia.

OP posts:

ejt1764 · 21/03/2007 16:46

As an addition to the advice given by others, I'd suggest you contact the school's SENCO to discuss your anxieties.

They'll be able to help you plan for the whole transition from primary to secondary.

frogs · 21/03/2007 16:54

Practise the journey with him a few times over the summer holidays. Is he the only one from his primary school going to this particular secondary? If so, you could try phoning round other local feeder primaries to see if they have any Y6 children going there too. Although you may find the schools are quite cagey about sharing that info -- I tried it with dd1, who was the only child from her school going to that secondary, and it got me precisely nowhere.

If he has genuine issues with timekeeping and organisation, then it might be worth contacting the SENCo to see how they might support him. Good schools tend to come down quite hard on Y7s early on to get them into good habits, so best to flag up any genuine problems here. You could also ask the secondary school if they could match him up with any other children likely to be making the same journey.

I wouldn't worry too much about the size thing, though I know it's more of an issue with boys. Looking around at the current Y6 in my younger dc's school, some could pass for 14 (girls in particular) while some still look like 8yo. Presumably at some point it'll all even out, but at the moment they do look like a comedy lineup.

Flip