My child is moving onto secondary school next year so what should they be doing over the summer to ensure they are prepared?
Making the leap from primary to secondary school can be a daunting time for both your children and for you! What can you do to help your child prepare for this big step over the summer months.
- Relax and enjoy the summer holidays. A lot of time is spent in Year 8 consolidating learning from Primary 7. If your child struggled with a particular area of maths or English in P7 it might be a good idea to spend some time over the holidays revising this.
- Encourage your child to read as much as possible over the summer holidays. The important thing is that they are reading for enjoyment to develop their language, extent their vocabulary and this will also improve their spelling.
- Make sure they keep revising their times tables up to 12 and can quickly recall the answers mentally.
- Make sure your child has all the necessary equipment needed for the transfer to the “big school” – a calculator; a pencil case and plenty of pens, pencils, rubbers, ruler, pencil sharpener, etc. ;geometry set; appropriate sized rucksack/bag.
- Talk to your child about the new routines for the new term. The location of their new school may require a new routine in the morning. You may want to do a trial run to make sure they will not be late on their first day.
- Homework and revising will become a much bigger part of your child’s life in next few years so preparing them for these changes now is important. Encourage your child to take responsibility for their own learning. Discuss with them when the best time will be to do their homework. Make sure that there is enough time to fit it in as well as other after school activities they may be taking part in.
Clare and Martin, this is such great advice. As a past secondary school teacher who now is a parent with a daughter moving up to Grammar school this year it’s nice to read from a different perspective.