How To Prepare Your Child For Starting Year 7

If your child’s starting Year 7 in September, there’s a strong chance you’ve already thought about their first day more than they have.

Every summer I meet parents worrying about whether their child will make friends, find their way around a much bigger building, or cope with going from top of the school to the very bottom overnight.

Those are all fair worries, and starting secondary school really is one of the biggest changes a child goes through.

But after watching hundreds of pupils make this exact move, I’ve come to think we tend to pin our nerves on the wrong day, because the transition is really made over the summer, weeks before the first bell.

The reassuring bit is that most children are far more ready than we give them credit for. By the time they leave primary, they’ve already learnt how to make friends, fall out and make up again; cope when a plan goes sideways; and ask an adult for help – and all of that will carry them through Year 7 just as well as knowing where the science block is.

None of which means every child sails through, because they won’t. But most of those worries do settle, and there’s solid research to show it. When University College London (UCL) followed around 2,000 children through the move for its STARS study, it found most had some worries beforehand that eased once they actually started secondary.

So, a bumpy first few weeks is usually just part of settling in, and a calm face at home is one of the best things a child has going for them while it passes.

Ahead of that nerve-wracking first day, here are some ways you can help prepare your child while they’re off for summer.

Kids clock our tone of voice long before they take in the actual words, so keep talk of secondary school on the sunny side. A few nerves are normal, so say so, then steer the conversation around to the good stuff, like new friends, new subjects and all the clubs they never got to do at primary school.

Ask Year 6s across the country what’s scaring them most and the answer is nearly always ‘getting lost’, which makes total sense when they’ve spent years in one building where they know every corner.

When your child asks “but what if I get lost?”, they usually want reassurance more than a plan, because underneath it they’re really asking whether it’s normal to feel nervous. It always is. Let them say the worry out loud, tell them how you felt on your own first day, and remind them that staff spend all of September helping Year 7s find their way.

Buy the bag, uniform and kit well before the last week of the holidays, because nobody wants to be tearing around town for the last pair of black school shoes or a scientific calculator the night before term.

Once it’s bought, hand it all over and let them unpack it, label it and sort it themselves, so it feels like old news by the time September comes.

Secondary runs on a hundred small jobs your child does without you, so treat the holidays as a low-stakes practice run. Let them nip to the shop, meet mates in town and get themselves ready for a day out. Once term starts, get them making their own packed lunch and laying their uniform out the night before.

For a lot of kids, getting to school is the first proper thing they’ll do on their own, so do a couple of trial runs. Walk, cycle or bus it together first, then let them try it with a friend, and time it while you’re at it. Talk through what to do if the bus doesn’t turn up or they take a wrong turn, because a plan they’ve already talked over does wonders for their confidence.

Those first few weeks are exhausting, with everything new at once, which is exactly why familiar faces and old routines are worth holding on to. An afternoon with primary school mates, or the usual Saturday footie, is a proper breather in the middle of the whirlwind, so give them room to find their feet and go easy on the questions at the school gate.

This year’s intake has something new to think about, because most will start secondary with much stricter rules around phones during the school day. Rather than letting it become another worry, look at your school’s policy together before September, so your child knows exactly what to expect.

If something’s worrying you, the school really does want to hear about it, so drop a line to your child’s tutor or head of year, get along to the information evenings, and keep half an eye on the emails coming home. It’s the quickest way to know what’s going on.

Every September I watch new Year 7s turn up looking tiny in oversized uniform, and within a few weeks the same children are finding their classrooms without a second thought, joining clubs and coming home name-dropping teachers you’re still struggling to keep track of yourself.

That happens because we give them room to work things out, with support around them when they need it.

So, talk up what’s coming, hand over a bit more responsibility than you did last month, and trust that seven years of primary school have got them more ready than either of you quite believes right now.

It’s a big milestone, but in the end it’s only one morning, and the real work is the bit you get to do together this summer.

Andrew Wilson is the chief executive of OAK Multi Academy Trust.