starting secondary - small school to big - friendships and peer groups

[gueue]

I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who had a change like ours will be - small primary - less than 60 kids (in total) - moving to big secondary (more than 1500). Were yours put in the same class as their peers/friends from primary? Did they stick with these friendships? Did they make good, genuine friendships or fall in with/stick with whoever? A difficult/ impossible question, I guess, but I'm interested to know how kids from a small school, where you have to get on with everyone, fare when faced with a choice of (potential) friends

My DD is in Yr7. She went from a Primary School of 90 children, to a Secondary of over 1500. None of her friends went with her. She spent the first term making dozens of friends, the second term falling out with most of them and now seems to have settled in with a fairly steady group of good friends and a range of acquaintances. 2 of her Primary School friends went to another Secondary together (as best friends) and now have other friends instead.

Having said that ... my DD was REALLY looking forward to going to a big school, having a 'proper' science lab, going on the bus, etc.

My DS is moving from a large primary to a huge secondary in september but he is the only one going to this school from his year 6 cohort. When he went to the induction day the boys in his class were all from the same primary apart from DS and one other who DS wasn't particularly taken with. There are some girls too who DS seemed to think all made friends straight away!! I was slightly phased by this recount (oh no my kids not going to have any friends!!), but he's not phased at all - he is SO looking forward to secondary for the same reasons; science labs, bus journey, buying his own lunch!! etc. I'm sure he will make friends - these things happen and we worry but we shouldn't let our DC see our worry should we? Its a big step for parents when their DC are moving onto secondary especially when its your first.

My DD faced the same situation as HSMM's. She was really ready to leave primary - it had been pretty hard going for the last two years due to its size and having nowhere to go when clashes happened. So she was looking forward to a larger cohort. She spent the first term pretty lonely, as all the other kids had come with friendship groups, and because she'd decided to hang back a bit and see what the lie of the land was, as it were. Second term she began to make some friends but still pretty lonely. By the end of third term she had made a really strong, supportive group of friends with similar interests...

then we moved.

(She had no troubles fitting in in Year 8 in a new school as it wasn't a new experience for her though, and luckily we moved to a school where the Y7 groups were all broken up anyway)