I'm likely to spend lots of time here these days. I'm very thankful to have a place to come and ask questions.
My eldest daughter had her first day yesterday at the local secondary school. She is in Year 8; we just moved to the UK from abroad. Dd has lived in five countries in ten years. This school was our last choice (it is our catchment school). That is the background info.
We had an appointment to meet the headteacher (an apparently famous guy) first thing in the morning. He came into the reception hall, saw us, and said, "Oh! You must be the people I'm supposed to meet this morning. The told me I'm to meet "some people" at 8:30, but they didn't give me any details. I tried to get them tell me details. So, I'm sorry, but I didn't know who you were." Then for ten minutes he kept mentioning that he wasn't told who we were and that now he knows who we are. He took a few details, tried to reassure us about some points, and let us go.
So I handed my dd over to the head of her house, who couldn't tell us if she would need her PE kit because he couldn't figure out if it was week A or week B. So he asked the admissions officer, who had to flip through her agenda to figure it out.
Not one of dd's teachers ever took her aside and spoke to her. In physical education her buddy for the day had to try to figure which "set" she would be in and ended by assuming that she would be in set 2. I kept asking what the teacher said about it but she just shrugged. My child doesn't even know what a set is -- and I only know because I've been reading here!
My dd carried her heavy PE kit (she brought the whole lot since she didn't know what she would need) around all day long. No one mentioned getting a locker. No one asked about taking her fingerprints so she can get set up to eat. There was nowhere to sit to eat, anyway. She barely had time to swallow three crackers at 10 am (she gets low blood sugar).
I realize British schools are not set up to cater to kids who have never been in the British system. I do. But what about new kids? Do they really just throw them in there and make them swim? Dd was in a tiny school, had nine children in her whole year! She is completely overwhelmed. When I tried to explain to her that she should meet a pastoral manager she was panicky and said, Whaaatt? in a very uncharacteristic, teary way. She has been crying since she got home yesterday and she never, never cries. She was a top student and I'm worried. Can you tell?
I'm not sure there is much advice for anyone to give me here. But I just moved here and have absolutely nobody to talk to. And, I must say, I'm quite teary myself. I'd just like to understand better how this should work, in an ideal British secondary school, let's say.