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How do we prepare our kids for high school
and make the move less daunting for them – and us?
Parents need to be reassured
that high school is a very safe and supportive environment.
There are many people
that students can go to
if they are encountering any difficulties socially.
I'm a Year 7 adviser
and my job is to make sure
the kids feel comfortable at school
and I stay with them from Year 7
right through to Year 12.
So I'm with them for every year
that they're here at the school.
They're encouraged to come and talk to me.
And I talk to them often,
wander into their classrooms just to have a chat
and try and get to know them on a personal level
so that they like to come and talk to me
whenever they need to.
Orientation days are actually held when the child's in Year 5.
So when your child's in Year 5 you need to facilitate
by sounding out local schools,
visiting them and going to their orientation days
so that by the end of Year 5
you're solid with where you want to send your child.
Children going from Year 6 to Year 7
can often be apprehensive about going to high school
and what things they'll face.
The transition program that we have
from Year 6 to Year 7
dispels a lot of that because
they go and have days where they're
actually in the high school.
They get to sit in science labs,
sit in English blocks
meeting with the teachers they're going to have
as part of their daily timetable next year.
At primary school everything's sort of done for them
and organised for them.
At high school, you show up
and it's a much bigger school,
you go from A to B by yourself,
your homework is due each day.
Don't spoon feed kids everything.
Let them take responsibility
and by the time they get to Year 6
they should be in those routines that you've taught them.
It's important to have your child into a routine
for doing homework as it is in primary school,
so that when they get into high school
and have homework from a number of different teachers
they've already adopted a good study program.
Organisation is absolutely critical.
You're coming in to a totally different kind of learning environment.
Lots of different classes,
lots of different classrooms,
lots of different subjects,
lots of different teachers.
In primary school they have all their equipment
in a centralised location,
which they can go to
and access for each subject.
In high school students require more equipment
than they did in primary school.
And all this they have to have organised
and cart around with them,
so to be organised is the biggest way of getting around that.
One of the best things a parent can do to help
is to know the equipment the child needs for school.
And in the early days of high school especially,
help them pack their bags.
Make sure they've got a calculator.
Make sure they've got the materials,
their mathematics workbook,
their ruler, pens and pencils.
Help them do that,
because what you're doing,
you're putting into practice a regular routine.
For parents to best assist their children with that
it's keeping on top of the organisation,
so making sure they have a journal, a diary or a planner.
Preferably on the fridge or somewhere really, really obvious
that everyone in the family is going to see –
parents and child.
Making sure there is homework time set every single day,
remembering that in high school
homework is very rarely called homework.
It's most often called assignments or assessments or completing class work.
To establish those routines with their child
as they get used to the very, very different
and challenging environment of high school.
I have students leave my class every year to go to high school
and the first day of the next year they run down
and they're excited and happy,
so a lot of of the fears we have are because of the unknown.
So it's really important just to be positive
about the experience of going to high school.
Sometimes parents think that when their child comes to high school
they need to take a step back,
we say not a step back but a different step.
That they're still there supporting their child
and our experience would be that those children
who do really well in high school,
their parents have been there
in some way, shape or form,
supporting them through their six years at high school.
And you can find more information
including a video called
Starting High School
at www.schoolAtoZ.com.au