19 Mar 2025
Hannah Kokri, who runs the Herts and Beds branch of Manor Tutoring and is involved in one-to-one SEND support, mentoring and behavioural interventions locally, looks at the challenges faced by pupils transitioning into secondary school…
Homeschooling during Covid lockdown. A distant memory now and, for many parents, perhaps not one they are particularly keen to revisit.
When Boris announced the UK’s first lockdown on March 23 2020, schooling was forced to change drastically overnight.
Those pupils who were in Year 1 on that day will, almost unbelievably, be entering secondary school this September. It is understandably daunting for the students and their parents alike. Nevertheless, forewarned is forearmed. Here, I’ve put together an overview of the key differences between the primary and secondary systems from a student’s perspective.
Whether your child is in Year 6 or about to leave Year 11, there will be some food for thought. Perhaps have a look through it together as you start thinking about transition?
Miss, is secondary school really so different?
Yes it really is!
Firstly, it is going to all be new. That will blow your mind at the beginning. You’ll need to learn to navigate the building, make new friends and build relationships with more adults than you’ve ever met in one place. Your timetable will probably be designed fortnightly, making it harder to remember, and it will include subjects you have never come across before.
On top of all that, the expectations of you are going to change dramatically. Your organisational skills (have you packed your pencil case and does it contain all your equipment?), your behaviour and your time management will all be monitored. Homework steps up big-time. It’s on you now. Teachers will be utilising ‘consequences’ (behaviour points, detentions, being out of circulation) as a way of reminding you about the standards they expect. This will be such a shift away from the way most primary schools deal with expectations.
Eeek! I’ve never had a detention in my whole life!
It can feel scary and, if us adults are not careful, that could make you feel a bit rubbish about yourself. But, if you and your adults know that these ‘consequences’ are commonly-used and are designed to help you to learn, you should be able to cope with this change.
It will be tough on the adults at home, too. You might be extra tired and grumpy at home at the beginning, because you are working so hard to meet school expectations. Just remember to notice these feelings and reflect on them together afterwards, so you can make up and start to deal with situations better.
OK, but Miss, this is deep. How can I make it easier?
You can absolutely practice a few things to get yourself ready, the earlier you start doing this the more prepared you will be.
You weren’t born walking or crawling. You had to work so hard to learn, with both your brain and your body. I bet you fell and bumped yourself over and over. You didn’t give up, you got there in the end and you were so proud of yourself.
Learning to be organised can follow the same pattern. Just like walking or crawling, every single person manages it at a different age. It is definitely easier for some people than others, and some adults have to work hard at it too, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t achievable for you.
How?
You could start by asking your favourite adult for a bit of their time. Maybe once a week. Go to a comfy place where you won’t be interrupted and have a think about how you feel about all these challenges. Make a list together, you could include; being organised, being on time, making new friends, building trust with new teachers, taking on new subjects, homework, behaving as expected and anything else on your mind. Chunk your list up into the stuff you know you are good at, the stuff you are not sure about yet and the stuff that you want to work on.
For each of the areas you want to work on, I’d recommend thinking about two strategies: practice and tools.
1) Practice
Practice is about building in regular opportunities to challenge and flex your brain, like you are at the gym, so you get better and better over time. Slowly, these things won’t feel so hard and will start to come naturally. I know someone who would always remember their pencil case, but it rarely contained the equipment they needed.
Every couple of days, they practiced packing their pencil case until it became second nature, nearly as easy as breathing! You can do this with habits, too. If you find packing your bag in the morning is feeling stressy and chaotic, form a habit of doing it before bed every night. It just takes a few days of it feeling annoying, before it becomes easy and you’ve suddenly developed a brand new habit that makes your mornings a lot easier!
2) Tools
We all come across things that just feel impossible. We practice and practice but, for some reason, it’s not something that comes naturally. That’s when we need support. Support can be so basic and so impactful. For some students, simply changing the font/format/location of their timetable can make a massive difference to their organisation and timekeeping.
Surprisingly, the tools you need might even be other people. Especially when what you struggle with involves other people. If making new friends feels scary, think about
opportunities to meet people from school outside school. This can help to deepen your friendships in a different environment. In addition, taking part in clubs, sports teams and hobbies allow us to find ‘our people’ and to experience real connection with others.
If you are concerned about how your behaviour might look at school, you are really going to need the support and guidance of adults, rather than your mates, to develop in this area. You may want to research emotional regulation tools together with your favourite adult.
Tips for parents/adults
– Try to keep your perspective. Stressed out teenagers are very good at making us feel panicked. When your child comes to you with their worry or their anger about an experience at school, just hear them out. Rest the urge to ‘solve’. They will feel better by simply being listened to. Then, take some space to allow you to think it through. If, like me, you like to think outloud through conversation, who is going to be your go-to support? Often, once we are away from the intense emotion, we can see a young person experiencing something tough, but survivable. For these situations, any ‘solving’ will send them the message they can’t handle it and will dent their resilience.
– Help yourself by expecting some kind of regression. You know your own child and how they might respond. They all react in their own way. Sometimes they blow us away and cope with situations we never expected them to. However, as you will have experienced time and time again as a parent, sometimes big changes cause things to go backwards. This is OK and, again, not necessary cause for alarm.
– Try to take a nurturing approach. They are going to do things and be in situations that disappoint or worry you. They need to learn from these experiences. Young people will learn best if they know that they are loved and accepted. This doesn’t mean that you don’t address the behaviour, that is key to them learning, but try to separate the behaviour from how you feel about them as a whole. That behaviour was unacceptable for these reasons and I am going to support you to learn that it must change, but our relationship is unchanged.
– Think about whether you need to link up your child’s primary and secondary in any way. When EHCPs are in place, certain procedures tend to that ensure this is the case. However, many parents are surprised by how little information makes it across to secondary, ahead of their child joining the school. It’s worth asking their Year 6
teacher whether there is any provision/tools in place at school that have really helped and that you are not aware of. You can then summarise and be the link-up on behalf of your child, whether it’s something that needs to be communicated to SENDCO or their form tutor. This will allow your child to get off to a positive start with necessary
support in place. The alternative could be where behaviour points build up, a parent meeting is called and, at that point, you realise the school were not aware of what support was needed. This does not help your child’s self-esteem, nor does it serve them well in terms of the reputation they hold in the eyes of the teaching staff.
– Do not take it on alone. You need to know your own strengths and weaknesses and when to bring in extra help. Some of us found out very quickly during that lockdown that we are simply not the best person to be helping our child with their homework!
Some of us realised that our children need a broader range of adult relationships, to advise and guide without the tensions of the parent-child relationship. Now is the time to pull-in those grandparents, godparents, aunties, uncles and old family friends!
Or, if you want to formalise and outsource this support, weekly tutoring, coaching or mentoring can be truly transformational, for the whole family!
