Next year to high school. The school year is in full swing. If your child is in group 8, then you have already visited the open day and the choice for which secondary school has probably already been made. Before you know it, the time has come and he goes sideways to the seventh grade! For many children, and parents, this switch is exciting. A lot is going to change.
I have been lucky enough to be the teacher of a group of 8 for many years. And what a wonderful development children go through in that group! What I saw every year is that by the end of the year all the kids were ready to go to high school. Even if they really weren't in the first months of group 8. It was good for all children to go to secondary school.
And where one can't wait to go and would like to go to such a big school with new teachers and make new friends. Is it very exciting for someone else to go to first grade? Because how will it all go?
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There are quite a few things to consider when your child goes to first grade. Whether he or she finds it exciting or not, quite a bit will change and completely different things are expected from them than at primary school.
In secondary school, different skills are required of you than in primary school. This is of course practiced in primary school, but the intensity is different. There is often already some homework given, practiced using a diary and studying for a test. For a number of children this is enough, others could use a little more help with this so that they can start well in the new school year. In this way they can also better process the transition to secondary school.
Tips to help your child transition from primary to secondary school:
Does your child find it exciting? Talk about it together. What does he/she look up to? How does he/she think it will go. You don't have to take away the tension as a parent. Because if you go to bridge class, this can just be there. It is also normal to find this exciting. It often helps if you discuss that. Talking about it is already a relief. And kids also love to hear stories from when you were in high school. So get some nice anecdotes out of the closet 😉 .
Many children get stuck in high school because they lack skills like planning and learning. You can already practice with this when they are in primary school. For example, by dividing the teaching material into pieces for the tests they have to learn. So that they already get used to this principle. You can also do this well when your child has to make a piece of work, for example.
A tip for the future:if your child will start the first year of secondary school next year. Give him/her some time to get used to it. Keep talking about this and let your child know that it is normal to have to get used to changes. This also ensures that the tension does not overflow further than necessary.
Take this test and you will get a bit of an idea whether your child is ready to go to first grade.
