Educational Advice
The jump from Year 6 to Year 7 ‘A parents view’
Time For Secondary After seven years of being fully involved in your child’s schooling, be prepared for a shock! Your little one has grown independence, time to let go, or at least pretend you are letting go. Gone are the days of standing in the playground chatting and catching up on the latest gossip with the other parents. No more knowing every other child in the class, their likes/dislikes, what their parents do for a living and playdates at each other’s houses while the kids run around to their hearts content, whilst you drink tea putting the world to rights with other mum friends.
Nowadays, these new names keep cropping up and you have no idea what they look like, never mind what their parents do. The only time you meet other parents are on the side-lines of a sports match. These names chop and change over the first few weeks and then suddenly you start hearing regular names come up the new friendship group of your child and you have to trust that you have guided your child to choose sensibly and make the right decision when it comes to who this new group of friends are. Trust yourself you have done a good job in guiding your child and who knows these could be the friends for life, how many of your school friends are still friends? There is a strong possibility that your child will have to travel independently to get to their secondary school, daunting as this is, it is all part of the rite of passage and they won’t be alone. By the end of the first term they will be a natural at it and travelling will come as second nature to them. Homework is now also their responsibility, they know the guidelines, they know the consequences if they don’t get it done, that is not a battle that needs to be had. Let them make that mistake and learn from it. Trust that you have done a good job over the past foundation years and now is your child’s opportunity to go a make those decisions and become the person they are meant to be. Yes, there will be struggles and there maybe tears, but these are all part of the whole transition and their personal growth, trust them, You can’t do it for them and trust me you wouldn’t want to. Relax and enjoy watching your child grow.
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