Starting secondary -the bits you don’t think about

[anna1969]

Having read the thread on starting secondary school there are a few vitals as a teacher of 30+ years that I think are missing!

1. the school canteen! My kids are both still in the secondary system and the biggest lure when they started was all the amazing snacks and foods available at break and lunch.

Set a budget for your child! My son especially trollied through his lunchtime allowance on all the goodies available at break that weren’t on offer at primary school. Pizza breads, pain au chocolat and MacDonalds style breakfast baps. Pack a back up snack pack-even if they are insistent they want school dinners. After the first year 7 only days they are quite often faced with long queues at the start of September at break especially where it might not leave them enough time to get to the toilet and refill water bottles. Most secondary schools also have designated toilets just for year 7 students and buddy systems in place. 2. They will be very tired-sensory overload of a new classroom, new routines, new subject and new teachers, new friends. Don’t plan too much in the early weeks and expect that at half term they will be exhausted. Help them get ready the night before, books PE kit etc. sign up for a locker asap! 3.Digital homework-not all schools have physical homework diaries anymore but online homework portals like firefly and Microsoft teams. Tasks are usually avaialable for parents to see what has been set and an online diary. Get used to checking in on the platform your school uses each day. Worried?! Talk to your child’s form tutor whenever you need to. Most schools are now encouraging home school contact unlike in the past. 4.Bugs! New school, new group of germs! Brace yourself for coughs and colds in The first term-the germ pool has just got bigger and with new bugs! Shove a pack of tissues and hand sanitizer in their school bag when they aren’t looking! 5.Rain. Your child will not wear their coat or will lose it and their rucksacks are not waterproof. Especially the well known sports brands. Shove a plastic bag in them so whatever is in rucksack doesn’t get soaked!

Make sure they get used to carrying their bus pass and door key!

We needed similar but not on any given day, they just took in what they needed not all of it. So no base layers or football boots or long trousers in summer. They always knew what they were going to be doing in PE.

Know their bag is GOING TO BE VERY HEAVY especially if they are required to bring a laptop in everyday on top of everything else.
Definitely name clothing (I named everything). Invest in some clear labels. A lot of parents seem to think just putting initials on a label is enough, or writing a first name and initial! In a 250 or 300 year group in a 1500 pupil school, this is daft!

Additional things - if they have a phone, save the school office number into it, be clear if they are on a bus stuck in traffic or a delayed train, they should call the school and say.

talk through what to do if something goes wrong on their commute, eg the train is cancelled, the bus doesn’t stop when they put their hand out, they realise they’ve left their train ticket at home. (Having a bank card or some cash is useful.)

Printer ink! I’m a teacher and I really object to this. At my school we always give out printed copies of any worksheets. My son and daughter’s school don’t -assumption made that you have a printer at home and it costs a load in ink!

As a parent, retractable key rings are useful if you worry about them losing/forgetting their house key. I sewed a loop inside DC's blazer pocket so they could attach it. It meant that when they got home, they could use the key without removing it from their pocket and losing it in the house. 😁

Also, plastic re-usable exercise book covers so their books don't get all dogeared in their bags (I know some schools require books to be covered, and some don't, but either way it's worth doing).

Wwe tried these, they just unclipped them “because they were annoying”

They probably meant annoying because they didn't want their books to be neater than their friends' books. 😁

Not UK, but none of this resonates. Is it necessary for our children to feel such significant change between primary and secondary?

Tbf the two main changes are
a) going from biggest to smallest
b) moving from class to class

Also the much bigger school can be an issue

None of those is avoidable if you want a range of subjects with specialist teachers.

I meant the keyrings

And IIRC they fiddled with them till they broke. Basically all the things I tried because I'd seen them suggested on MN got firmly rebuffed.

One of the biggest culture shocks at our school is lost property. Unlike primary, the children usually have to move around between lessons and need to remember to take their stuff with them. Then, if they lose something, they need to re-trace their steps to the relevant classroom to find it, not expect someone to find them (even if it's named). Things might eventually be taken to a central lost property box, but they're just as likely to stay in a pile or box in a corner of the classroom for a few days, waiting to be reclaimed.

Check if they are expected to wear PE kit all day on PE days. I had to buy an extra set of PE kit because they wear it on Monday and Tuesday.

Save yourself a fortune by buying a 5 pack of giant cookies from the supermarket and give them one a day or they'll waste 20 minutes of their break buying a £1 cookie each day.

Absolutely agree with this! DS' blazer is like a wearable cupboard!

We needed way more PE kit than I could have imagined!

I think they had PE 3 days a week in year 7, then they joined every club going with practices at lunchtime and matches after school. We had 3 pairs of shorts 3 rugby style tops (also worn for football) and 3 polos which were worn for gym and cross county (also for cricket in the summer term). School PE socks were identical in colour to some sold by sports direct so we had 6 pairs do those as they were in the 3 for 2 deal.

Definitely get them in the habit of packing their bags the night before, and find out when they’ll be doing cooking. Ours only did it for one term in year 7 but it does take an extra level of planning and organisation.

PE kit gum shields bought but never worn in 5 years.

With both kids.

For UK based people, how do your year 7s communicate with each other mainly?
On their mobiles I mean, what platform do they use?

Definitely this. I still remember the sheer hell of sourcing suitable ones at considerable expense then they were never once used.

See also shin guards and football boots. But admittedly I have a teen with an almost supernatural ability to avoid team sports.

I know where all the proctors go. They make it into my box in the science preproom where they are ready for the next physics lesson on reflection as they are not named. (I'm known as the Queen of proctors as seem to be able to find them anywhere).

But one very good tip, is be really nice to the science technicians, smilie at them, pack away all the science equipment nicely and say thank you to them. Because if you every break your school bag/spill your water bottle/damage your shoes or god forbid have a trouser incident. You can almost guarantee the only person in the school who will have the tools and knowledge to solve the problem will be one of the technicians. And I don't understand why it always seems to happen in science 😕 unless that's just because we are a core subject. We are very nice though and are always willing to help.

The bits I did not think about until recently is how impersonal and prison-like secondary schools are. Our primary is very caring and each of the kids are treated according to their individual needs, quirks and personality. The impression I got from the secondary we got is that its more like a prison camp than a school. Talking to the school, I was basically told they have 1000 students and have no time or capacity to bother with each of them individually. Their detention list is also shocking - no talking in corridors, no walking in groups of three, have to be home in 30 minutes after finishing school (no idea how that works, we live an hour away).

As I grew up in anther country, I don't really know if its the school we got, or all secondary schools. I know kids have to step and have more lessons, are expected to be more accountable and independent, and the discipline is tighter etc. But I was not prepared that my DS will be seen as a faceless cog and treated like a little criminal!

@clary

Year 7 girl: Smiggle pencil case with scented highlighters, her own glue stick, many many pens and a pencil sharpener.

No Smiggle for a y7!!!!

My DDs 12 and 14 don't even take a pencil case. They put pens in their blazers.