Your feelings about rthe whole leaving Primary School thing!

[vociferous]

Hi Folks.

I started to become a regular poster on here some months back. You may remeber that I adopted a young child and we are getting through life as a family. Im 26 and cannot have my own children for personal reasons. It's working great so far!

My sister has her own children and her eldest is in the dreaded Yr6 and is leaving today. She is extremely emotional and has been on the phone all morning.

I've never witnessed my sister in this way before, shes normally very happy go lucky, tough nut sort of lady.

For previous Yr6 Mums I was wondering what your experience was on the dreaded Leavers Day. I will have to face the music in a few years time and am now dreading it!

What sort of things do the children do apart from limos and such rediculous stuff.

Maybe I should be preparing myself for that moment. I'm such a little emotional bag of whatever. I cry at the sightest little thing.

It would be great to hear your experiences, wether your a Yr6 mother this year or previously.

My sister has now made me feel very nervous, I know it's a few years away but I tink it may dwell on my head for the enxt few years.

many Thanks.

Daniel

We had a leavers' assembly and they had a disco the previous night.

I felt very sad. I love the school gate and the school community; it has meant a huge amount to me and although obviously I'll keep those friendships going, it's hard to stop being part of that as a matter of course.

Child was stoic. I wept buckets. It's not about her, dammit, it's about me.

I love the comment 'children grow up it's what they do'!
Sadly they also seem to have a separate school life and close down lines of communication with Mum and Dad. We home educated until the exams and still have great long chats with our DS; it helps living on a farm too I suppose as there are always tasks to be done and practical matters to discuss. Oldies have experience but youngsters have a fresh approach so we complement one another.

Mine have a few years to go yet but are leaving their primary school because we are relocating. I just do not understand the whole crying parents thing at all. Each new stage in their development is an exciting change. My dc might be a bit sad for a while at leaving a few friends behind, but I don't see why I'd be upset. I like seeing them grow up and experience new things.

DD2 is certainly ready for her grammar school, she has been bored witless all year. But unless you talk to her, she doesn't look ready. She is tiny, smaller than most of the y4s and some of the Y3s. She will be the youngest person at the grammar and probably the smallest (she fits comfortably in 7 year old clothes). She looks like a little child. Intellectually, she's not. But...she doesn't look ready to move up. Even though she's been ready for years.

Oh come on, of course they're all ready to move on. That's the point of Y6. You have to get a bit bored in order to cope with the shock of secondary; it's nothing particularly unusual, in fact it's normal.

You can still feel sad at leaving behind the lovely community of primary - it isn't any reflection on your child's academic capacity. I don't want to be all stiff upper lip about it.

I can promise you that two weeks into secondary those kids who don't look ready for it now will be transformed! I can think of two kids I've ever known who have had real adjustment problems.

I certainly can't think of a single child in DD2's year who isn't ready. Most of them are huge lurching creatures working their way through the Hunger Games. Apart from DD2 who is minute.

Our Y6 children had a fantastic week. They had a play in which they all had a speaking part, a leaver's assembly which they all contributed to, a mass, an in-school water fight and a disco. But the disco was just that, and certainly was not a prom and there were no limos.

My dd was sad to be leaving. She is young for the year and is the only one going to her secondary school. But most of her friends are also going onto schools as the only one, so she's not alone. Two days into the summer holidays and she's relaxing.

Dd could easily do another year at junior school, she only turned 11 this week and has always got on better with the children in the class below her. She is still very trusting and baffled by the complexities of girls friendship issues etc. She did well in her sats but still needs quite a lot of support in class. She does not look/sound or act like a secondary ready child I am apprehensive for her tbh but she will get there eventually...

I didn't find my children leaving primary or secondary particularly sad. As PP have said it was a case of onwards and upwards. They were ready for the next stage.
I WAS surprised how emotional I felt at DD1's graduation. That really was an end of an era, my beautiful, dependent baby now a beautiful, scarily competent, independent adult. It was a wonderful day.

Motherinferior 'it wasn't about her, dammit, it was about me'. Quite! Ds is ready ready ready to move up, but I feel horribly nostalgic about the little dot who is turning into a teenager before my eyes. About all of them who looked so cute in reception and Year One and now look almost like grown ups. And about the school community which has been a huge part of my life for so long.

Secondary is right for ds but I think I'm allowed to feel a bit sad at the passing of time and the loss of that community. Secondary will be much more ds's world, in which we will be far less involved. That's right and proper, but a bit sad.

I suspect (for me anyway) it's more about our children heading into new stages of their lives rather than them leaving. It was for me anyway, DS left high school a year ago, DD has just finished (going back to 6th form though hopefully)-it was emotional for ME as I knew it would be getting nearer the time that my children were more independent and me having to let go of the reins bit by bit at each stage.

I was really sad, and knowing they were 'ready' didnt help. I mean, it meant I knew it was all basically ok and right and good, and going somewhere they would be happy, but it was still very bittersweet.

The lines in their leavers' song 'we just know/ and we're sure/ that now's the time that we can let go, got to make our own way' were the saddest, because they were true!

Where we live high school starts a bit later, great for ds, but the last year of primary was a really long one for dd. She was still a little bit apprehensive in the last weeks, even knowing how much her brother enjoyed his first year.

We had a parent organised party (speeches, a great bring a dish spread and a disco) and the leavers assembly. dd enjoyed both, especially as she got an award. ds didn't go to the party, and was very sad at the assembly as he was one of I think only three that didn't get an award or certificate (the school recognised that they had that wrong and didn't do public hand outs of certificates at her assembly).

dh and I were sad to say goodbye to the school community (dh was on the school planning committee and joint PTA chair so quite heavily involved) but not sad to see our children growing up. I've never quite understood the 'slipping through my fingers' feelings personally. I'm more with the marveling at them developing, alongside a 'were they really that small once upon a time' way of thinking.

Edam, if it's any consolation they'll all look tiny again next year. (Caveat again for DD2 on account of already being tiny.) My boggling is also at uniform, which my lot never had before. Hello to the tedium of blue polyester and rolled-over waistbands.

Back in the Cretaceous age when I was at primary the local authority reacted to the raising of the school leaving age by keeping us at junior school till we were 12. Big mistake. Absolutely everyone spent the year in a fug of hormones and boredom. (Mind you that was Norwich in the 1970s...)

Nooka that's bad. They handed out certificates at DS's assembly but it was about 10 certificates out of 90 children so I reckon that's fine as it's not a minority who are without a certificate.

MI, you've met ds, he is NOT going to look tiny! Towers over some of the boys we know who have just finished Year 7.

Secondary uniform is indeed NOT a thing of beauty, can't stand grey and black for children. So miserable. And polyester blazer... although to be fair I had a wool blazer at my school and it was horrible whenever it rained. Which it did a lot in Yorkshire.

It was really painful to watch, the leaving year were all on benches at the front and as they got the certificates fewer and fewer of them were left sitting so it was very very obvious that there were only a few of them left. I don't know why the teachers hadn't thought it through.

The certificates were for effort (mainly having good organisation and attitude) and achievement and that particular year had obviously done very well. ds has dyslexia and never got either (poor organisation and struggled with writing). There was a prize for special effort (which went to his best buddy so he was happy about that) but otherwise they were for academic achievement or sport so didn't really cover a very wide spectrum - several went to the same children.

When they went back to his classroom his teacher gave him a certificate for most improved spelling but he was in bits by then. He has done really well at secondary though, made it onto the effort roll last year and the honour role this year and was very very chuffed about that (although as usual dd did even better, and adding to her collection of honour roll certificates with a honours with distinction one. She does work much much harder than him though).

Elementary to high school at 12 here. Has made the transition to high school pretty smooth.

nooka we had very similar happen. I had prepared dd for it - felt terrible telling her she probably wouldn't get an award, but she has pretty well been invisible at junior school and the same dc get rewarded over and over. She was one of 5 girls (out of 16) in her class who didn't get anything, so quite noticeable, but one of the lovely teachers collared her in the playground the next day to tell her he was amazed she didn't get anything and she definitely deserved recognition. It really gave her a boost. One of her friends apparently cried herself to sleep that night

I don't know why some schools get it so wrong on the child psychology front. Why do the quiet hard-working ones get missed out for everything? I'm praying it's better at secondary...

I'm afraid to say that ds was neither hard working nor quiet in his primary years. Pain in the arse but charming is probably more accurate! I don't think he particularly deserved an award or certificate, it was the staging that was the issue. There were about 40 children in his year, so the name calling took a while and he had worked much harder that year and thought he was going to be called. I felt desperately sorry for all of the children left sitting, it just seemed a bit mean I guess.

That does seem very mean - poor kids. I really liked the way our school did awards. They weren't for academic or sporting achievement at all, but for things that related to the kids' personalities ('most likely to...'). It's a small school, and their teacher and TA have had them for the last two years, so know them all very well.

Apparently my dd is 'most likely to become prime minister'