Y7 helpful tips?

[LittleGardenMouse]

DD (my eldest) is going into Y7 in September. She will be the only one from her primary school going there and it is a bus ride away.

What do you wish you had known when your dc started Y7? We would be grateful for any advice

Year 8 DD, State school a 50 minute bus ride away and likewise, she was the only one from her Primary who went. Things I wished I’d known & advice as follows!

• She’d handle the journey really well. We panicked a bit about it as she was only 11 and did a couple of practise runs with her before she started. She has Life 360 on her phone for tracking, a mobile charger and print outs of bus times.

• The early start would be a grind. Get her bag sorted with books and appropriate kit the night before to cut the faff down.

• She’d really miss her Primary friends so much. The transition really wasn’t instant and she wasn’t particularly keen on the first group of friends she made. She’s now a lot happier and Primary friends are more of back up these days. Don’t worry too much about any bumps in the road, they do find their crew!

• If you have to get uniform from one stockist, do get it early! The later you leave it, the less likely they’ll have the right size and getting new stock in can take a while.

• Checking homework online (DDs school use Edulink and we can access it too) and getting DD to plan out her weekly homework a week in advance on a wipe clean monthly planner on the fridge. Homework was a bit chaotic at first till we started this regime as well as a set time to do it (6-7pm).

• To give her a small period kit for her bag for when she started her periods (which she did, at school, with nothing!).

• To look and see if they was a Facebook parents group for new starters to the school that year. There was but I didn’t know about it for ages and it’s been useful to connect to other parents. I work full time, DD commutes and I know very few of the parents - it’s really not like Primary in that regard!

Hope some of this helps!

My eldest was also the only girl from her primary school who went to her secondary school and has been absolutely fine. It may have been helped by the fact that very few girls came from the same school so everyone was in the same boat. Teach her how to introduce herself and ask someone's name. A great ice breaker when everyone is feeling nervous.

My biggest thing though was just how removed you are from school life than at primary school. I know COVID has a part to play, but literally they are expected to be independent. You don't get copies of homework diaries and stuff and important information is sometimes sent to the pupils direct instead of going straight to parent e.g. a piece of kit if you made a sports team. Don't get me wrong, I fully embrace all this as they need to stand on their own two feet, but some of her friends (and their mums) have really struggled with additional responsibility put on them and parents being out of the picture.

That it’s just school. They get all hyped up and it’s made a big deal of. I think this made my DD quite anxious.

Thank you, these are all good to bear in mind. Especially the tracking app and period kit.

I'm not a huge user of social media but might have to bite the bullet here, especially as the school is a bit further away so we will hardly know anyone in the school community.

I'll encourage her to introduce herself, what were people's experiences with friendships in Y7? Do you allow your dc to use whats app groups to stay in touch? Are you in a parent what's app group if your dc is at secondary?

What about money? Do they carry any with them? There must be so many things that will be surprising for primary parents who haven't been through the experience yet.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I don’t belong to any WhatsApp parents group as quite honestly other than the parents of a girl DD has become very good friends with in the next village, we know no other parents with kids at the school. It’s not something I miss at all but it’s why the Facebook page has been useful just to check info with other parents on the odd occasion.

DD is on WhatsApp - they have a class group and she and her small friendship group have a group too. I do periodically check it as we have the passcode to DDs mobile but not often. Year 8 there seems to be less drama and the class chat is largely homework related. Year 7, there definitely was some drama and catty comments on the class chat and DD took herself off it.

Year 7 friendship wise for DD was definitely rocky at points, she was initially friendly with a very popular girl who quickly decided she wasn’t cool enough and then she hung out with people she didn’t like that much. She’s since been pretty proactive at making a completely new set of friends and seems a lot more settled. This is just typical secondary stuff though - as a PP has said, it’s just school. They do migrate a bit across groups during their Secondary years - it’s all pretty fluid. Don’t panic if there are ups and downs - do encourage her to join clubs and take part in different activities as that will widen the number of people she’ll get to know. Keeping in with local Primary friends is good too as the holidays are long. DD does Scouts with 3 girls she was great friends with at Primary.

Where are you OP? We won’t find out our allocations for a while yet.