The move from primary to secondary education can be stressful for any young person. This is because primary schools offer more predictability, usually with the same teacher and classroom throughout the year. The move to secondary school brings a lot of changes – different classrooms and different teachers for each subject, larger buildings spread over a the school site and new travel arrangements.
Therefore, in school, we are currently spending a bit of time on preparing the Year 6 children for their transition to secondary school. We do not want the children who are at home to miss out on these activities, so please let your child watch this video and complete the activities below. They can post their responses on classdojos – we look forward to reading what they have to say and their thoughts and feelings about transition.
The following questions have been designed to discover how
you feel about changing schools- write down your responses to the following questions:
- How do you feel about leaving your old school?
- How do you feel about starting a new school?
- List 3 things that you think are going to be different in your new school
- List 3 things that you are looking forward to in your new school
Before starting something new, we experience lots of mixed
feelings about what is going to happen to us- will it be a good
experience? When starting a new school we may have lots of
hopes about what we would want it to be like, as well as a few
fears about things we worry may happen to us when in a new
environment with new people.
The report below is from a boy called Jay who, like all his friends,
moved to secondary school in September. Although he was
looking forward to starting the new school, he was also worried
about the change and what it would be like.
Here’s what he has to say:
“Everyone gets scared when they are moving to secondary school. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. When I was just about to move up I was nervous. I was worried about the amount of work, how hard the work would be, the bigger people in school who may intimidate me, and if the teachers were going to be strict. The things that worried me the most were making new
friends and losing old ones and how I’d be able to fit in with everyone. But I haven’t lost any friends and I’ve made loads of new ones really quickly.
And there are a lot of things that helped me. There were a couple of induction days – they really helped because you got to meet the teachers, you got to meet all the people in your class, and you got a taste of life in secondary school. Getting to pick a group of four friends that I wanted to be in my class helped too, but I only picked one.
In the first week we got taken around the school by the prefects. That helped a lot too. They also gave us advice about our uniform, where we could and couldn’t go, and the school’s policy on using mobiles in school, especially social media. There was a lot to take in and, I don’t care admitting, I’m still not actually sure about using snapchat and Instagram…my mum doesn’t like it. But I’m on facebook and I guess I’ll just find my way with everything else if I really need too…Having the latest gadgets and being on all these different groups and things definitely isn’t the big deal I thought it would be at Secondary school.
Now I am enjoying my new school a lot; I use the school library loads and I am starting to find my way around. The only thing
that I am still getting used to is having lots of different teachers.
My advice to people moving up would be: Don’t believe all the rumours you hear, don’t think that just because you are in a different class from a friend that you will not see them again, and try to make some new friends; don’t just stick with the friends you’ve got. It’s not as scary as you think and, actually, being the youngest in school again is pretty cool…“
Think about Jay’s report and the list you have made about the different things that Jay mentioned in it. Draw a cartoon strip about Jay’s experience of moving to secondary school. You may like to add your own characters such as Jay’s friend, a teacher he met, and/or a school prefect who was particularly helpful.
