Dd struggling with start of secondary school

[MagnoliatheMagnificent]

My dd is struggling massively with settling into secondary school. She is quite shy and is finding it hard to make new friends, cope with the high workload and generally is very unhappy with all things school related.

She has developed some OCD type behaviour because of the stress - touching things a certain way, neatening things precisely repeatedly, a few others. Any helpful advice please? I could talk to the pastoral team at school but I’m not sure realistically what practical help they could provide.

Please do speak to the school. My DD started secondary school in September and finds it completely overwhelming. School allow her to start 20 minutes later so she misses registration (a trigger for her) but goes straight to her first lesson from the Pastoral hub. She has various passes for leaving class without question, leaving lessons early so she can move to the next classroom without being amongst hundreds of other kids. She is being assessed for dyspraxia so she gets extra time to get changed for PE etc. A support staffer meets her each day to walk her to the hub or she just wouldn't go in (I walk her to the door each day) Her anxiety is off the scale every morning, but we keep on. Please do give the school the opportunity to make suggestions or provide adaptations for her. You have my sympathy, it's heartbreaking to see them like this.

This is how I felt going from large state primary to small indie secondary where I knew nobody, and not having very good social skill (and having a very different background).. I think it's definitely worth talking to the pastoral team. In retrospect, what would have helped me is to be placed on some sort of project with similar girls, or to be on the same sports team or in a club, or have assigned seats at lunch time, or basically any very structured way to consistently be with the same children. Because I hadn't yet developed the skills to approach and converse with new people.

Yes definitely talk to the school. And speak to your dd to see if you can establish what it is and then relay that back to school.
Her main adult relationship will be with her form tutor so start there.

I feel for you. My DD has extreme social anxiety and a fear of being judged by her peers. I strongly suspect she is on the spectrum. We are in week 11 of year 7 and I think she is finally beginning to settle but it's been tears & misery most evenings until very recently.
What helped beyond belief was her finding the one other girl in her class that also suffers from anxiety & me intervening a little (I got her to text the other girl and they had a little exchange) - then DD felt she wasn't so alone.
Lunchtimes are still excruciating & we've had to work on a strategy so that once she's got her lunch on her tray she has already worked out who to sit with and this means going in between 2 people she is comfortable with in the queue (& definitely not first) as there is no hanging around once you've got your food.
She's also been allowed to do a class presentation (in pairs) in front of a smaller break off group rather than the whole class, the prospect of which caused many sleepless nights. She engineered this herself with her form teacher. I am ashamed to say I took a wait and see approach despite my better judgement as was worried we might get told 'this school is not suitable for your DD'. First parent's evening later I needn't have worried - they can all see she is anxious and couldn't have been kinder in what they had to say to her about it.

DD is managing the higher workload by trying to knock off some of the homework at lunchbreak in the designated quiet room or library and this has the added benefit of avoiding the absolute chaos of the unsupervised form room which she find intimidating and overwhelming.
I agree with Iggly - try and identify the anxiety triggers with her and give her a tool kit to help manage those situations and definitely ask the school if they will support this.

Good luck - it will get better. I honestly thought I was going to have to pull DD a couple of weeks ago. For her the key was making a stronger connection with just one girl and I'm trying to widen that to one or two more now so she's not over-reliant on one person

Thanks everyone, it's hard for them isn't it. I think i'll speak to the pastoral team and see what they suggest.

Defo speak to them ASAP. Was she the only one from her primary to go?
My DD is having the opposite experience. She's confident but the things that have helped are
1.knowing or recognising other kids

1. Doing tons of extra curricular clubs with smaller numbers of like minded kids

3.getting to form class early to have time to chat fo form teacher & class 4 . They only get 4-5 bits of homework max. Couple of hours a week plus test revision. They have all kept up other clubs

1. The school is local so easy to socialise outside