If your children are starting senior school this sept

[Blandmum]

1. Mark their shoes and trainers with their name. You'd be amazed how many kids have the 8same* style of shoes. One boy went home last year in one size 7 and one size 10 shoe!

2. Find out where their bust terminates ie what will be on the front of the bus.....this helps them to stay calm in the hussle bussle of end of day 3. Agree in advance what will happen if they miss the bus, it will keep them relaxed 4.Remind them that all the kids in the school were once small and in year 7.....they all survived 5. Get them to do the home work on the day it is set wherever possible.......it will help them and make their lives easier. 6. If they spend weekends with other parents it might be worth investing in extra kit if possible.

any other hints?

lol at the terminated bust.

Excellent advice, especially No 3.

We made every effort to ensure we knew about the bus pickup after school, as it was the one worry that DS1 verbalised. Alas, we were given the wrong information, and first night (!!) they missed the bus.

at bust! Bus, bus, bus

Please talk to them. Take an interest in what they've done. The children who do adapt best are those with parents who are interested.
Check diaries as these are an excellent means of communication and please make sure they've given you any letters from school so that they don't lie festering in the bottom of their school bag for weeks!
Making sure they have basic equipment, e.g. pen, pencil, ruler and rubber etc with them so they don't have to waste time borrowing at the start of a lesson.

Check their homework diaries / planners every day
Put their name in their pencil case in case it gets left in a class room

oh, & make sure that they are lovely and polite to all TAs and give them large boxes of chocs & bottles of wine at the end of every term

Tell them not to concentrate on finding a 'best friend' (for girls especially!) but to try and be friendly to as many people as possible. The best friend thing will sort itself out later.

Tell them that if anything goes wrong (they don't get homework done, lose a book, forget something etc) they should approach the teacher and explain rather than keeping a low profile and hoping the teacher will forget/not notice. That way lies detention -- teachers hate being taken for a fool.

Tell them to always keep their PE kit/other gear in the bag, hung up on the peg/in the desk/locker or whatever. The stuff that gets nicked/borrowed first is always going to be the stuff that is lying around looking ownerless.

Tell them to avoid the year 11/12/13s .

We do it differently here, they go to Upper at 13 so we already do the diary/homework thing anyway.
Why tho' am I nervous and ds is really excited?

Cat64 - I get those printed stickers that go inside the shoe with a plastic cover on top for my dd's shoes but then she is only 7. When she's 11 she may not appreciate having her name written in her shoes . I don't remember having my shoes marked for me at secondary school - having said that, no-one would have wanted my shoes anyway since they were from Clark's range of sensible but terribly frumpy school shoes .

You can buy stick on name labels from the same companies which make the sew in ones.

Although it's right to say, take an interest, don't do what I do and turn it into a daily interrogation.

Don't necessarily buy everything on the list. My ds lost £150 worth of named stuff, none of which ever reappeared.

Scan in their timetable and make a copy for the fridge or noticeboard so they always have one to check at breakfast time while they're getting used to remembering which day they need their violin/sports kit/swimming stuff (delete as appropriate)

write their names inside the shoe in marker pen.

Encourage them to do their homework as soon as they get it even if it's not due in for a few days and for them to prepare their bags the night before so they've got time to hunt down their bits and pieces. Setting the school uniform out the night before is a good idea as well .

If they always lose stuff, tie their h/w diary to their book bag

Cat64 - I'm thinking back to how disorganised I was at school . I didn't really get organised academically until I went to uni .