Best Practices for Transitioning from Elementary to Middle School

Quita Jones quitajones@lowndes.k12.ga.us

Both students and their parents may find the change from elementary to middle school intimidating. To ensure that the academic and social-emotional needs of the students are met, careful planning and preparation are necessary for this significant change. The school visitation program is one of the most important steps in the transition process. This article will examine the six steps needed to develop a successful rising sixth-grade elementary to middle school transition program: planning, pre-visit, visit, parent session, other transition activities, and start of middle school.

• Email contacts (Pre-Visit & Visit): The next step is to email the staff members involved at all locations (administration, counselors, lea teachers, club sponsors, etc.) to let them know the dates you’ve chosen for the elementary and middle school visitation program. Dates for the pre-visit (also known as a classroom visit) and campus visit should both be included in the email. This crucial step enables the feeder schools to properly plan their schedules. Additionally, it gives extracurricular organizations like athletic teams or clubs time to prepare if you invite them to present during the school visit. We invite our Connections teachers, who also have clubs, our Athletic Director, along with the middle school band and chorus to participate.

Planning

Planning the school visitation program should start at least three months prior to the scheduled date as the first step in the transition process. There are several tasks involved in this crucial step. The crucial actions that must be taken three months beforehand are listed below:

• Visitation Date Approval: The first steps is to check the school calendar to identify the best dates for you to visit the elementary classrooms and for the incoming sixth graders to visit your middle school. These are crucial steps because you need to ensure that the dates chosen do not coincide with other significant school events, such as testing days or end of year field trips for the incoming students. Once you have identified the best dates, you should seek approval from the elementary and middle school administration and begin planning your events.

• Plan Parent Information Session: At this time, you should also begin organizing the details of your parent information session. It's crucial to plan a parent event that enables the parents of students entering middle school to discover more about their new institution. The parent event should be planned to coincide with the student visitation schedule.

• Promoting your events to increase attendance: Once the dates for the classroom visit, middle school campus visit, parent information session, and any summer program (if applicable) are set, you should send that information to the school registrar to be added to the third nine weeks report cards of the incoming 6th-grade students, create flyers in pertinent languages, add to outgoing newsletters, post on social media, and send to the elementary schools to be added to their email listings. Promoting the event in multiple ways is the best way to make certain that all parents are informed, able to express interest, and aware of the upcoming events.

Creating and Updating Forms: The next step in the planning process is to create or update each of the forms needed for your parent information event. These might include things like the dress code, attendance, evaluations, extracurricular activities, or any other paperwork or procedures that might change from elementary to middle school.

•Requests: The final step in the planning process is to send any custodial or maintenance requests, start creating any packets that will be distributed to parents or students, and select, communicate with, and train the student helpers while the most important planning steps are being finished. One to two months prior to the event, go over any assigned tasks with staff and administration, make banners for the tour group, send any last-minute reminders to the elementary school, prepare your parent presentation, and complete the event schedule.

Pre-Visit (Elementary Classroom Visit)

One of the best things you can do as a school counselor to assist any new student in reducing their anxiety about starting a new school is to be one of the first people they meet before starting school or on the first day of school. Plan a day or several to visit the students' classrooms and speak with them about what it will be like to be a middle school student before they arrive on your campus. Send survey questions to the students a few weeks before you visit their classrooms, asking them how they feel about going to middle school, what activities they are looking forward to, what concerns and worries they have, what concerns and worries their parents have, and if they have any questions they'd like to ask. Using the responses to these questions, design your meet and greet classroom activity. These brief classroom sessions, which last about 30 minutes, have proven to be the best way to ease anxiety, boost optimism, and get students excited about visiting your school.

Visit to Campus

Hosting students on your campus can be done in a variety of ways. However, you can host your campus visit separately by school or in the evening with their parents. During the academic year, all of our schools are required to travel by bus on a single day. The students are split up into manageable tour groups before this day even comes. The finalized agenda of the day is distributed to middle and elementary school staff, group lists for the fifth grade are emailed to the teachers, group signs are made, student helpers are selected and trained, all participants in extracurricular activities are reminded, the gym is cleaned, schedules are adjusted, if necessary. A staff member welcomes each bus upon arrival and directs them to their tour groups. The students are given a brief presentation to introduce the school before the tour begins. At the end of the tour, all students assemble in the gym for a final presentation that includes a showcase of clubs and athletics as well as a brief pep rally.

Parent Session

According to research, parents frequently have a variety of worries when their child moves from elementary to middle school. Some common concerns include:

1.Academic Performance: Parents are often worried about whether their child will be able to handle the increased academic workload and higher expectations in middle school.

2.Social Adjustment: Many parents worry that their child will struggle to make new friends and adjust to the more complex social dynamics of middle school.

3.Safety: In a bigger, more diverse school setting, parents frequently worry about their child's safety.

1. Independence: Parents may be concerned about how their child will handle increased independence as they enter middle school, such as scheduling their own time, doing their own homework, and managing extracurricular activities.

2. Bullying: Parents frequently worry about the possibility of their middle schooler being bullied or harassed; and

3. Communication: Parents may be concerned about how they will communicate with their child's teachers and stay up to date on their child's progress throughout middle school. All of these concerns are valid and can be addressed during your parent session. Informing parents about the transition process as well as the academic, social, emotional, and environmental changes should be the main focus of this session. The presentation should contain details from your administrators, the nurse, counselors, parent involvement coordinator, athletics, and any other pertinent sources to allay the caregiver's worries

Alternative Transitional Activities

All of the aforementioned procedures and actions are necessary for parents and new students to have a successful transition plan. In addition to the previously mentioned activities and strategies, implementing a peer mentoring program in which more experienced students mentor younger students can foster a supportive relationship and make them feel more at ease. A summer orientation program can help students feel more confident and less anxious by covering topics like how to use a locker, get around campus, incorporate social-emotional learning activities, study skills, time management, and organizational techniques.

Students who are introduced to and encouraged to participate in clubs, sports teams, music ensembles, and other extracurricular activities are more likely to make new friends and feel like part of their school community. To help students feel more at ease about starting middle school, consider sending each student or their parent a welcome e-card or a real postcard with important information. When classes start, plan your "Meet the Counselor" classroom activity during the first month of the year to remind students of your responsibilities, how to set up an individual appointment, and how you can help them throughout the academic year.

In conclusion, the idea of moving from elementary to middle school can be one that evokes feelings of dread and fear. A student's perception of their new environment can change into one of excitement, which fosters academic and emotional social success, by adding a few extra supportive activities and resources to your transition program.