Getting Ready for Secondary School

When you receive an offer of a place at Stepney All Saints CofE School, you will then be contacted to provide a range of information on your child. From June we will write to you with guidance on how to support your child during the transition to secondary and you will also be invited to a coffee morning where you will meet key staff.

In the first week of July all of the Year 6 pupils who have been offered a place are invited to spend a day at Stepney All Saints CofE School. On this day pupils will be given a taste of secondary school lessons. They will have lunch provided and will also been given an induction day pack. The pack contains details for the start of the new school year in September. It also has a booklet with transition tips for parents.

Additional work is also carried out with specific groups of students and a range of transition resources are provided on our website for families. Scroll down for this guidance.

To support parents, we have a dedicated the whole section for Year 6 Transition, please visit the page for more information.

GETTING READY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL

Moving from primary to secondary school is an exciting time for many young people, but we know that it can also be a daunting prospect. Addressing children’s worries throughout the process and giving them opportunities to experience and talk about the next steps really helps prepare them for what lies ahead and how they might handle it.

To facilitate this, we have put together a series of sessions for you to work through at home with your child. Each session has a different theme focusing on getting ready to join us at secondary school.

All sessions can be completed by your child independently, but it is best for you to discuss each session together.

PARENT/CARER – STUDENT SESSIONS ON MOVING TO SECONDARY SCHOOL

Being brave

Being brave means different things to different people.

Watch the film below in which students talk about what being brave means to them when faced with the challenges of starting secondary school.

What does being brave means to you?
In which ways can you be brave in difficult situations?
How can this make you stronger and more resilient?

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Changes

The next film highlights the main differences between primary and secondary school.

Booklet 1 – Changes

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Getting to know you

When you join us at Stepney All Saints, we will want to know all about you. Every one of you will have different interests, experiences and stories to tell us. To help us, we want you to do a task. All the details are in the next booklet:

Booklet 2 – Getting to know you

Hopes and dreams

When you join us at Stepney All Saints a new world of opportunities opens up, from joining a sports club or learning to cook in food technology to channelling your acting skills in drama.

In the video, secondary school students talk about the subjects they like the most and tell us how they play a part in their hopes and dreams for the future.

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Getting organised

How will I get to school each day? What uniform will I wear? How do I do up my tie? There will be lots of new things to think about at secondary school. You will be moving around the building to different lessons and will need to have all of your equipment. So how to you get organized for secondary school? Now work through the activities in the next booklet:

Booklet 3 – Getting organised

Can you do up a tie on your own? Practice makes perfect. The following video uses a clever technique to help you do your own tie. Let’s see if you can remember it.

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Routines

An essential part of being organized is having a good routine. Your routine will change from the one you had going to primary. Also, routines need to be healthy and well-structured to make sure you do well at school.

Now work through the activities in the next booklet:

Booklet 4 – Routines

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Stepney All Saints

What do you know about us at Stepney All Saints? You probably know a lot already, but there are things you need to know in order to have a successful start at secondary school. You will be given lots of information when you start, but what do you need to know for day 1?

Now work through the activities in the next booklet:

Booklet 5 – Stepney All Saints School

PARENTS – HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR CHILD MOVING TO SECONDARY SCHOOL

We know that the transition to secondary school can potentially be as difficult for parents as it is for their children. We are here to support you and we will be meeting with parents in September on various occasions to assist in the transition.

You can find some useful guidance in this download – Secondary-Transition-into-secondary-school-Parent-Pamphlet

You can also read further guidance in the following documents:

1 Secondary-Building-Resilience-Parent-Pamphlet

2 Secondary-Growth-Mindset-Parent-Pamphlet

3 Secondary-Helping-your-child-get-into-good-habits-Parent-Pamphlet

4 Secondary-Making-the-Change-Parent-Pamphlet

YEAR 6 – LESSON ON MOVING TO SECONDARY SCHOOL

We are always grateful to our primary colleagues for the transition work you do. To further facilitate this, we have put together a transition lesson. We hope that this will enhance your own offer. In our experience, the work Year 6 teachers do to support the move to secondary has a significant impact.

The PowerPoint contains three videos which have been embedded. The lesson revolves around change and discussion about developing resilience. The resources can be downloaded from the links below: