Preparing a Year 5 child for transition to private school, any advice please?

[Toadflaxx]

Any advice please on getting a Y5 kid ready for transition to private school?

My DD is joining a rural private co ed (they described themselves as ‘gently selective’) in September in y5

She’s was doing amazingly at the village primary until we moved house, and with it moved school, and the new primary is not so good :(

It’s hard to know how she’s doing academically, she’s missed a few months of y4. She reads non stop and got full marks in her Multiplication Table Check.

Is there anything else we should be thinking about to prepare her for private?

Will the private kids be able to read music?

Should we get her French tuition?

Any general advice welcomed - her dad and I didn’t go to private school so the culture is all new to us!!

She’ll be fine; they are used to welcoming new children. There will likely be a lot more sport than in her state school. Most kids will only be able to read music if they pay for separate music lessons on top (many do, many don’t). You won’t need French tuition. Ask if you can be added to the class WhatsApp group; there might be meet ups over the summer break.

Thank you @OnlyMabelInTheBuilding that’s a great point about meet ups

We moved my DSD to a private school when she was in year 4, having been at a very very small "village" school. We got her some online tuition just to make sure she didn't feel like a fish out of water when she started, as they were working at a much faster pace than she was used to (her old primary was two year groups in one classroom, plus this was just after the covid lockdowns).
We just did the lessons over the summer holidays, from memory she had two sessions a week and I definitely think it helped, but this was about 5 years ago now. If you DM me I will send you the details of who we used

I transferred to a private school in year 6

I couldn’t speak any languages then. I am now a translator. That aspect ramped up in secondary. I couldn’t read music but joined the choir and could by Sixth form
Relax. She will be fine

oh btw I am still crap at times tables 🤣

I moved one of mine from state to private for the start of year 6.
We didn’t do anything to prepare. She is academically able and had been doing guitar lessons for a few years so had vague musical knowledge.
She fit in seamlessly. She hadn’t had anywhere near the level of sports and music education that those who had been there from the start had, but it didn’t matter. She just embraced every opportunity and soon ‘caught up’.
You don’t need anything like French tuition. Some will be able to read music, some won’t, depending on whether they play an instrument or not. I assume the school offers music lessons so if she’s interested I’d just start her off with an instrument when she gets there!

We moved our DC (DD in Yr5 and DS in Yr3) in November from our local state school to a rural small private school (non selective) having never gone to a private school or even considered it before. Our private school is very used to having children join from the local state schools; my DD is 1 of 5 to join this year and DS is 1 of 2. The school spent sometime doing assessments to see where they were academically and setting work based on the assessments.
We did nothing to prepare as we made the move very quickly after deciding.
Neither DC can read music and had only 5 weeks of Spanish from their old school.
The parts which took some getting use to:

• 3 hrs of PE a week
• speech and drama lessons
• 20 minutes of homework a night
• longer days
• singing lessons for the concerts which are in the evening (about 1 a term)

I would say DS settled quicker than DD but his old class was more of a nightmare due the high number children with additional needs (approx. 50% SEN).

Firstly I'd start by asking the school this question. If the kids have all been learning French for years, then yes it might help to give her a start if she has zero. They should be able to give you examples of work and stuff to get a sense of the level the kids are at.

We have had kids in a few different privates and they are all very into the Standardized Age Score - do you know your daughter's? That might also be a place to start

100 = national average
115+ = what most privates will be operating at
125+ = top selective schools.

So if she's at <115 she might find the pace of work a bit of a step up? Very very broadly speaking and I'm sure she'll be fine. Again, ask for examples of maths work and even some practice books over the summer. In year 5 they'll be very focussed on 11+ stuff.

Music - check with school. Some privates have a system where all kids learn a base instrument from quite young (in my son's they all do violin from 4 years old). In others they choose instrument or do no music at all. It varies.

I'd say the big one is sport, how is she at team sports, does she have one she does at weekends and things? If she's not a strong swimmer I'd definitely give her extra lessons as most private school kids will have had lessons from 4.

I am sure she'll be fine it's more things that might make her feel embarrassed or singled out if that makes sense.

Thanks, that’s super helpful

My general feeling reading these brilliant replies is that luckily she is academically capable, and I think she’ll catch up with anything she’s missing pretty quickly. She’s excited about the sporting opportunities, although the new school don’t seem to embrace girls football yet, which is a shame.

If anything I’m a little nervous about the step-up in engagement as a parent! But also looking forward to meeting some similarly ambitious, open minded parents :)

Mine moved to a selective private school this year in year 5: some reflections. She’s bright with cat scores 115-120 plus and is not struggling to keep up generally but there are clearly areas where she came in behind.

1. very behind in French. This was a massive shock to the system and her first lesson she didn’t have the foggiest what was going on as the teacher spoke in French.

2. generally has made C/D teams in sport. The kids are very strong in the A/Bs particularly netball and she had never played but has been gradually catching up.

3. the standard of music is high- there is breadth where the majority of kids are around grade 1-3 on at least one instrument but also a chunk of kids who were grade 5-8 in year 5.

4. Maths and English comprehension has been fine. She has loved doing more science and humanities than you’d have on the primary curriculum. Writing she is seriously behind the prep kids. The work they did in the state primary in a week is done in a lesson. This remains the area of weakness and she might need extra tutoring next year before senior.

5. homework was a massive shock to the system. She went from a school with reading and a few spellings to 2 subjects a night of homework. By Christmas she was in a good routine and fine but there were some tears in the first few weeks as it felt so overwhelming compared to what she’d been used to.

6. socially it took a few weeks to find some good friends. It is hard being new so don’t underestimate how tired she might be just from having to learn new routines, meet new people and new teachers.

All that said, it was the best decision we could have made for her and she’s has absolutely flourished.

DD moved for Yr6 due to increasing issues at her state primary with her being isolated and low level bullying/controlling behaviour from one particular boy.
She is bright (115 plus) and hard working but was at the point of refusing school. She started private with her confidence on the floor.
12 months later she is transformed back into her happy, confident, outgoing self. The amount sport, music, art and drama opportunities offered at private have been a huge part of building that confidence, despite her being very behind in those areas because her state primary did less than an hour of each every couple of weeks.
The only thing I’d go back and change is teach her a bit about hockey and netball before starting, she had never held a hockey stick until the start of yr6 and had only played netball twice!

I did nothing for either of mine, new schools have their reports and adapted to suit what they needed.

Mine started independent at the start of year 6 and we’ve just had her end of year report. She got 130 standardised score in reading comprehension, greater depth in writing and 122 in maths, so she held her own academically.
She really embraced the sports and I think that was the biggest ‘win’ for her this year; she had so many more opportunities to compete. She made the cross country team, the B teams for hockey, netball and cricket (despite never having played cricket before in her life 😂) and the A team for girls football. She’s absolutely loved it.

Thank you guys, all so helpful, I have also shown DH

I haven’t heard of a the ‘standardised age score’ before, I wonder if there are practice papers we can get to test her a little on this?

I’m not sure her current primary could tell me as she’s only been there two months. Above all things I don’t want to stress her out about it though, she’s essentially a competent kid who enjoys learning.

Homework will be a shock yes, I think they do it at school though? Does that sound usual?

There’s also Saturday morning clubs and afternoon sport which will be a huge change.

It’s so wonderful to hear of other kids going on to thrive and make the most of the opportunities at independent schools. DD’s current primary is run by a weak head and with a high turnover of staff, it’s all very depressing :(

The standardized tests are used more to measure where the kids are in relation to their peers and the pace of work. Sorry it that was confusing. You'll hear about them a lot but it's not a pass or fail, just tracking data. It's more that if you know your child's average in maths is say, 106 and you go to a school where the average child is at a 120 you'll know the pace is probably faster.

In any event don't stress. These schools are absolutely brilliant at picking kids who will thrive in their schools. They've chosen your girl because they think she'll thrive

The school should be able to answer these questions for you. Nothing wrong with asking them on here, of course, but schools do differ a lot. One thing, don’t assume that pastoral care will be automatically better, or that there will be no bullying. You have to maintain your vigilance!

Find out what sports the girls will be doing next year and if there’s any she hasn’t tried before get her into a holiday club for beginners at the sport so it’s not all new to her.

My kids (also at a private co-ed) could read musical notes by year 5 and had done some French by then, it wouldn’t hurt to give her some time on both over the summer.

My DS joined a non-selective private school in year 4 after moving from the USA. He was a bit behind the UK kids but the school soon caught him up academically and he hadn’t taken any languages so French and Latin was new for him but he was able to follow lessons. Singing was a big change for him and it took a while for him to get comfortable and competent with all the singing! Sports were completely new compared to what he did in the USA so he was on lower teams to start but at the end of Y6 he’s now on B teams. We didn’t do any additional tutoring, music lessons, sports clubs outside of school and he’s been just fine and did brilliantly in the 11+ earlier this year. I wouldn’t stress and just have good communication with the school on how she’s settling in. If a year group parent rep hasn’t reached out ask the school to get you connected and hopefully you will have a wonderful parent community too!