Can you do well at secondary having had a really tough primary experience?

[hugsarealwaysneededhere1]

Is it possible after having not achieved at primary school, you can fly at secondary??
Dc has had lots of moving schools, changing of teachers and generally always been slightly below the standards all the way through.
Is it too late once they move into secondary? No more moving and a much more settled time, could this be enough to academically catch up?

I have a child in year 7 so in some ways difficult to say.
However, my gut feeling is absolutely yes. With you supporting as a parents and a settled period- all good I would think...
Good luck.

Definitely. I used to work in a secondary where lots of students had had bad experiences at primary, but with the right care and attention they went on to do well at secondary. The primary was in special measures, but the secondary was in top 10 percent nationally.

Yes, they often do the best. The ones who often struggle are quite often those who were really successful at primary - a big fish in a small pond. Lots of responsibility, attention, teachers nice to them, parts in plays, on netball team, etc, etc but who are fairly okayish academically. They struggle because all of a sudden they are a very small fish in a very big pond with loads of far more talented people than them so they become a bit obscured and are just bog standard kids - usually really nice people.

The ones who have had a tough time and come with warnings on their heads usually, after a bit of squashing and boundary placing, love it. They love the moving from class to class, the male teachers, the lack of hysteria about neat handwriting and making things look pretty. Just the hell of year 6 is something to escape from. I had kids who were almost shellshocked in Ebglish, who would tell me they were useless. They weren't, they were just not able to deal with relentless SATS crap. They left woth A and B grade GCSE.

Flyingprettycretonnecurtains and voobylooby - I think teachers like you make such a difference though!
It's so depressing reading that at age 10 they are not on track for a-c gcse grades if they aren't meeting primary standards. It feels so negative when the potential is all there. Confidence isn't great and motivation is a bit of an issue.
This gives me hope though! Thank you.

Just bear in mind that many adults now wouldn't meet the criteria at the end of primary.

Honestly, some children (mine) are not right to follow the pathway dictated by the current educational system. That is the fault of the system and not the person. Son 2 is now doing so well at Btec level at college. He's always been good as gold at school, average academically, brilliant at pe and drama just absolutely crap at exams. Any exams. Just hopeless. Don't know what happens to him but he certainly doesn't reflect his intellectual ability. There are different routes, unfortunately due to the shit that Michael Gove has brought upon the system, many of those routes are closing.

Essentially, education is about two things. Firstly, the enjoyment and interest in finding stuff out so that you can contribute, change, understand and analyse. Frankly, with the internet, anyone can do this at any time. Why we need to learn the halogens to regurgitate in an exam when three presses on an internet button and lo - the answer. Secondly, education is about learning to do stuff that you don't particularly want to do under circumstances and time frames dictated by others. Ie, it is about self discipline. That is a life skill and the most important thing to develop for the workplace.

Your child will have access to a far wider community in Secondary. All of a sudden he/ she will be surrounded by bigger, scarier, more lary kids and you might find that year 7 is a good year. Primary is often very female dominated in terms of teaching staff who can be quite risk adverse and are very different from secondary teachers. I work in both secondary and junior and there is such a difference in staff. Things that primary moan about (and boy do they moan) just get eye rolled about in secondsry but then the latter just don't have the same patience levels as primary or same resiliance for the minutae. I am very much a secondary teacher type. I love my work in Juniors but every day would send me potty and I really admire those teachers for being able to stay with the same kids all day. I miss the banter and laughs you get in seniors.

Flyingprettycretonnecurtains
What an amazing post - thank you. You've really summed up my thinking. As a parent you just want your child to have opportunities open to them and the thought of doorways starting to narrow at such a young age has really panicked me. The system is worse than ever but you've given me some really positive thoughts - thank you

My ds found primary difficult, not helped by two school moves (completely different systems too as we made two international moves) and dyslexia. He was difficult to teach with a very 'spiky' profile and we spent a lot of time meeting his teachers. I'm not sure what predictions he would have had at that point as it's not something they do here (not sure how it's possible with any accuracy given how different GCSEs/A levels are compared with primary)

He has just finished high school, is in the top ten in his year, has been offered two scholarships and a place in the best local university.

He really enjoyed high school, the different teachers, new start in terms of expectations, new friends and new subjects. He also had a really good teacher for the last year of primary that had very high expectations and really pushed him, and that was a great launch pad.

At Primary school, my Dd was below academically across the board and seriously below in maths. She came out of Primary school of having the academic ability of a year 5.

It was a long hard slog in year 7&8 at Secondary, however by year 9 she was making serious progress and in year 10 she was middle of the pack academically (excluding maths - still lowest set).

We're not in the UK, but she's in her final year of Secondary and has been getting the equivalent of what are A&Bs, including maths. It hasn't been an easy road but I could not have been prouder, she has truly worked her arse off.

Although, a lot of of credit does go to her teachers.

A collegues son started secondary on the SEN list and really struggled. He slowly improved, got enough GCSEs to go on to alevels, did great there and went to uni and got a 2:i and now has a great head office job.

There is always a lag in children's skills at the beginning of secondary school so this can level the playing field somewhat especially if you are super involved with her at the start of the year and perhaps do a little work here and there over the holidays (without taking it too far and turning her off education altogether!)

Thank you for these comments. The power of parents believing in their kids shines through. That and lots of hard work obviously from the kids too!

I think particularly compared to yr6, secondary can be a breath of fresh air. The emphasis shifts from the nuts and bolts such as times tables and handwriting to concepts and ideas more. That really suits some children. Maths for example is contained within five hours a week whereas in yr6, particularly with SATs looming if little Alfie didn't get long division they might come back after break and do more long division, much to the frustration both of little Alfie and the rest of the class who did now understand it. If Alfie is really good at RE this is noticed by the RE teacher who isn't so concerned that he still doesn't know what a modal verb is. Of course if the nuts and bolts are still very insecure then it can cause issues but it has really worked for my dd. Plus of course having learnt to persevere she has a good work ethic while others have been used to coasting a bit more on their initial good luck at learning to read early.

Yes! Primary branded me as a no hoper. I flew in secondary and graduated with a 1st! I remember my mother telling me 'the tortoise wins the race'.

I think you can certainly have a successful secondary school even with a bad primary school education. But do bear this in mind, nothing will just happen without effort. If there are gaps in your DC's primary school education, you DC need to fill it. Y7 oftern is a year for consolidation of the primary school knowledge, you may want to keep a close eye to DC's progress. And I would recommond you ask DC to do some extra during summer holiday, not too much, but it is such a long holiday, just half and hour every day will make difference.

My son's tutor says years 7 and 8 are primarily a recap of primary, so presumably can be used to get your DC up to speed.

My DS was targeted for Ds across the board but has achieved far higher in 8 out of 10 of his GCSEs in the mocks. Just waiting for results for actual exams now. Had a tutor for last 2 years though for English.

Best of luck! Let us know how he gets on xx

I think one of the problems with primary school is having the same teacher for every subject. It's very hard for the teachers (who are only human) not to categorise the children as "bright" or "naughty" or "shy" or whatever. If your child has what a pp referred to as a spiky profile, they may suffer from low expectations due to their below average performance in certain areas. These children will benefit from having a different teacher for each subject, who views them on the basis of that subject alone.

Also some kids are just relatively late developers. My brother (dyslexia) struggled to learn to read but ended up with a degree in English!

Ds struggled at primary, summer born, he was young for the year but also just young for his age...failed his Early Learning foundation Goals, spent Year One - never listening apparently - I was spoken to about his inability to listen at least twice a week. Was a day dreamer, struggled with Maths, but always enjoyed reading - teachers said he couldn't progress with reading because he hadn't developed the understanding - he had expressive speech problems - I ignored them and supplied him with masses of books. Once in Junior school things improved gradually, every year he exceeded expectations, every year he took more interest in his learning, he worked harder.
Secondary school he has moved from middle sets till top or second from top. He is passionate about his subjects, determined to do well and does not expect it to fall like manna from heaven - he works for it, does well across all his subjects, loves reading, loves learning. Given his shaky start I can hardly believe the young man he has become.

Blanket, you must be so proud. I hope his year 1 teacher can see him now?!

This is the thread I need to be on. DD2 is Mid August born, slightly premature, always slightly struggling, about to go into year 6. Still tries to take the top number from the bottom number in column subtraction, forgets how to borrow from the next column when exchanging tens for units, etc. Still very inconsistent with full stops, capital letters, finger spaces, let alone commas or more advanced punctuation. Her self-esteem is very low and she's awaiting CAMHS for ASD assessment. Her SENCO describes her as needing 100 positive comments to overcome 1 correction. It takes as inordinate amount of persuasion effort and support to achieve even one piece of homework - often ending in tears, panic and tantrums. I can't imagine what a piece of homework per subject would do to her. She's already up at night, fretting about SATs, which are a whole year away (she's taught in a mixed year cohort, so has seen the year 6 preparations this year). She can't yet get herself ready for school without support and prompting.

She's a lovely girl, and she masks relatively well - she's not terribly immature to the onlooker, she internalises her anxiety significantly.

I have started looking into whether repeating a year would be of benefit, although initial response of her HT is that this is impossible, but the local secondary does provide for the possibility in their admission policy. Or do children like this suddenly 'get it' once they are at Secondary? She'll leave primary at 10 years 11 months.

Lougle you can get extra help with transition between primary and secondary. Primary Teachers sometimes try and pressure the kids into working harder for the Sats by telling them they won't cope if they don't do well. The reality is that secondary schools just pick up where primary left off and imo they do it better - they have teams on hand to manage you dc's needs.....the teachers have to differentiate at secondary too and learning support wil be on hand to help. I've known parents who children have quite extreme needs that primary couldn't manage - they didn't have the training but secondary just did it!