Practicalities
A co-produced toolkit for families, schools and practitioners to use alongside children preparing for their move to secondary educational settings
Funded by Health Inequalities Funds
Navigating Change
Learning about the new school:
How will students find their way around?
What do students need?
What will the school day look like?
Practicalities
Learning about the new school:
Why take this approach?
By supporting students to understand how to find their way around the school, we are addressing their fear and anxiety about moving from familiar surroundings to somewhere new and unfamiliar.
It can be useful to use visuals, such as photographs/maps with colour coding, or online tours with clear markers of toilets/other important spaces. They also offer an opportunity for families to reflect back on together over the summer holidays and on the first mornings at a new setting.
Holding a clothes swap event that includes uniform can be a great opportunity for new families to feel part of the school community.
Explaining how teaching methods have developed through primary school and expectations of secondary school will help to address student’s stress and fear around change.
Practicalities
Practicalities
"I got to meet my teachers and got to know which teacher was in which classroom. I knew which classes were on which site. I liked being able to talk to the teacher about the seating plan and where it was best for me to sit to be able to hear and lip read the teacher.
It made me feel more confident about getting to the different classrooms on time. I was able to help the other children in my class and told them that the teacher was really nice and not scary. I liked being able to go in when the school was quiet, this helped me a lot."
An example from one family, whose child was able to go into the school the day before the start of term:
Example Case:
Why take this approach?
My daughter was offered to go into the school the day before the start of term. During her visit we were able to go to all her classrooms, she was able to practice following her map to find them. The majority of the teachers were in their classrooms, and this was a great chance for Daisy to meet them. She was able to talk to the teachers about where it would be best to sit for her to hear and lip read.
This opportunity meant that Daisy went in the next day confident and with a lot of her questions answered. A lot of her worries had been reduced and she felt assured that she was going to be able to be access the work by being able to sit in a good place for her.
Daisy wasn’t particularly anxious about starting secondary school, but this couple of hours really did make a difference to her start to secondary school.
If this opportunity was offered to anxious students, I really think it could make a difference to the children’s experience of starting secondary school.
Practicalities
Learning about the new school:
The school environment
Be prepared for new noises – e.g. school pips/bell
Include changing rooms and canteen in the tour for smells
Corridors, pictures
Settling in
Does the school use a 'This is me' profile for all students?
Are there after school clubs you can join in year 5/6 at your new/intended school?
Is there a mentor system at the new school?
Is there a Young Carers Club?
Consider joining transition support programmes (such as The Big Step)
Practicalities
Learning about the new school:
How will learning change?
What are the school’s policies on:
Practicalities
Learning about the new school:
Why take this approach?
It can be useful for parents & caregivers to explain to their young person that the school policies are created with best intentions and are created to support equity within the school, but that we are all human and due to a number of factors, sometimes the polices may not be implemented consistently.
Practicalities
Friendships
Which friends does your child have in their life?
Practicalities
Friendships:
Why take this approach?
It’s likely that your child will be asked to name friends that they’d like to be with when they move schools. It might be useful to take some time to discuss this with your child and support them to consider which friends might be a good option in their new surroundings.
You can help your child think through what sort of “helpers” they have in their life. For example:
Do you have family friends that have known you for absolutely forever? Do you have friends at school that you look forward to catching up with and look after you? Do you have adults in addition to your parents that are trusted sources of advice? Do you have a best friend or two that you couldn’t imagine not trusting at all times? All of these people are really important to us being able to grow and thrive as humans.
As you transition from primary and secondary school the number of potential friends and acquaintances that you will connect with and become a part of the helpers in your life will grow. It is a great opportunity to get to know some new people and think about the sort of people that you want to have around you to help you flourish and thrive. It may also be that some of the friends you had in primary school will slip away and stop being so close. That is absolutely ok if that is something you are alright with, because our friends do change as we work our way through life. Some of your friends will go, but you may also get loads of new friends.
Find those peers that seem to understand you, that you feel safe with. Let them get to know you and be curious about who they are. You can help them to understand that their existing friends may be going to a different school and agree the practicalities of whether they can still meet outside of school?
Practicalities
Preparing at Home: Routines
Can you practise the new routine over the holidays?
Practicalities
Preparing at home and practicing routines helps to make school days more predictable and is likely to reduce stress and anxiety as the routines become more familiar. It also provides an opportunity for children and young people to get things wrong when there isn’t the pressure to be somewhere at a given time and where you can support them to understand this is simply the First Attempt In Learning, rather than them feeling they’ve failed.
Replacing toys with keyrings offers an opportunity for a child to still have something that supports their sensory seeking behaviour, which might in turn support their resilience in stressful situations, particularly in new surroundings. Again, introducing this BEFORE their first day, providing them with an opportunity for this to become familiar. This is similar to wearing-in their uniform, so that if feels more comfortable and familiar.
There can be an increase in work being completed at home, therefore agreeing the boundaries about this will help you prepare as a family. It’s useful to keep in mind that children are likely to be tired when they first start at a new setting. They might find it useful to have some relaxation time after school whilst others will thrive on a variety of after school activities.
Practicalities
Preparing at Home: Routines
Why take this approach?
Preparing at Home:
Can you practise budgeting?
Who else can talk through the practicalities and how they manage at the new school?
Preparing for puberty:
Supporting girls to understand what they need to carry with them and the toilet facilities
Preparing boys to understand changes in their bodies
Practicalities
Children may be anxious or fearful about the canteen environment, therefore thinking through what might be challenging will help them to prepare and to alleviate some of their fear. They might be able to glean helpful tips from other family members, which helps them to understand that we can all find change difficult and support them to hear how a variety of people have dealt with those challenges in different ways.
Practicalities
Preparing at Home:
Why take this approach?
Children with SEND
Families have found it useful when agencies work together as early as possible and when transition starts in Y6 and continues through Y7.
Practicalities
It’s useful to: -
Team Around the Family – TAF
Special Educational Needs – SEN
Education Health & Care Plan - EHCP
Practicalities
When a child has Special Education Needs, it’s important to understand and assess what additional support may be needed, this is referred to as schools making reasonable adjustments.
Meeting the staff that will be working with your child will support your child to start building relationships with those individuals and help the staff to gain a better understanding of your child’s needs.
Arranging an individual tour with follow-up visits can help address your child’s anxiety around this change.
Children with SEND:
Why take this approach?
Practicalities
Many young people have sensory needs – this can include sensory information that they avoid, and sensations that they seek. Being aware of the likely sensory load of a new environment, the sights, sounds, smells, and likely forms of touch that they will experience in their day – is important – so they can be ready. Arming them with familiar and tolerable smells can be helpful, for example a tissue with their favourite smell.
Thinking about ways to block out loud sounds or bright lights. But mainly just being ready. Some young people may find it helpful to have heard the school bell in advance to be prepared for example.
Many young people can manage changes to their sensory environment, but while they are doing that their resilience to other change may be lower. At a time of great change, this is one aspect of the environment that can be considered and modified to some extent.
Children with SEND:
Why take this approach?
Other helpful resources
Practicalities
Children with SEND
Can you prepare a tricky moments plan with your child for school staff?
Practicalities
One Page Profiles are an effective way to communicate your child's preferences and support needs. These profiles provide a concise overview of your child's strengths and areas where they may need assistance.
You might find it useful to develop a tricky moments plan. This helps anticipate and address potential challenges your child may face in the school environment. By collaborating with your child and school staff, it ensures your child receives the support they need during these moments.
If your child has an EHCP, there should always be an annual review before a transfer to a new phase of education. DIAS have a wealth of information and resources to help you effectively collaborate with professionals and advocate for your child's needs in educational settings.
Children with SEND:
Why take this approach?
Children with SEND transitioning from mainstream primary to special school
Practicalities
Practicalities
It can be helpful to acknowledge that the young person may need more support, more visits, and their journey may look different. Their behaviour may reflect this. Social stories or other supports may be helpful.
Children with SEND:
Why take this approach?
Communication between family & school:
Ways of communicating with the school will change, as you can no longer pop in to see the teacher after school. It can be helpful to
Communication
Developing communication skills:
How will you and your child communicate during the school day?
Communication
If your child is distressed or worried, it’s useful to focus on supporting them rather than fixing the problem
There are some resources on the Parental Minds webpage to help you support your child
Communication
How will you communicate during the school day – could lead to a wider conversation about what social media is OK to use and when.
Focusing on support rather than fixing: this aims to promote solution focused living.
Developing Communication Skills:
Why take this approach?
Social Media
Social media is an integral part of our lives and it’s important to talk to our children about it. We can do this by
Other useful resources
Social Media
Social Media
It’s OK to step away from social media, some families put their phones to bed at agreed times during the day.
Social Media:
Why take this approach?
Supporting Young People’s Emotional Wellbeing:
Carrying out the practical suggestions is likely to reduce the anxiety that our children will experience however, this is a time of change in their bodies and brains too. The following section is about supporting the way that they deal with their thoughts, feelings and their actions.
Emotions
Supporting their Emotional Wellbeing:
How can we best prepare for the change?
Emotions
Emotions
It can be useful to talk about light hearted stories about your school days, however it’s also good to talk about the school system in an open way, reducing their expectations and explaining that there may be aspects that they might find boring or hard and that’s OK.
Talking about how dull your day is going to be will encourage them to see they are not missing out on anything whilst they are at school.
Transitions can often feel emotional, with loss of the past as well as natural anxiety regarding the future. For some young people they may find the adjustment to secondary school potentially brings feelings associated with loss of daily contact with friends & trusted adults.
Discussing that all emotions are valid will help children to understand that humans are NOT HAPPY all the time. We are complex human beings living in a complex world and we experience many different emotions over the course of a day. It’s useful to explore different ways to process our emotions. This might be by distracting from them to help dial them down, perhaps when we are in a public place, such as a classroom. Then finding time to release them in a safe way with people we trust and feel comfortable with. Using different tools will help us to increase our tolerance of different emotions and feelings.
Supporting their Emotional Wellbeing:
Why take this approach?
Supporting their Emotional Wellbeing:
How can we best support them after their first days?
Emotions
'10 a day' choices for our emotional wellbeing
10 a day is based on scientific research, which shows that doing these 10 things every day helps us to maintain a feeling of emotional wellbeing.
https://www.normalmagic.co.uk/resources/10-a-day-2/
https://www.youngdevon.org/wellbeing/wellbeing-toolkit
https://www.torbayandsouthdevon.nhs.uk/uploads/25575.pdf
10 things we can try every day
Emotions
Some challenges cause us STRESS.
STRESS is the gap between EXPECTATION and REALITY.
If the REALITY is fixed, we can only reduce our EXPECTATIONS to reduce the STRESS that we experience.
Emotions
Stress is the difference between reality and expectation. The greater this gap, the greater the stress that we experience.
So, let’s first consider the expectations of students at their new educational setting.
Now lets compare that to the reality. The school is made up of many different factors and explaining them will help students to understand. We cannot change the reality, it’s time to move on to a new educational setting and we are complex humans, finding our way in complex environments. So, our only option is to consider adjusting our expectations to reduce that gap.
Now that our expectation is closer to the reality, the gap between the 2 decreases, meaning that ‘stress gap’ reduces so we all experience less stress.
Stress:
Why take this approach?
The Science
When we are stressed, the Amygdala highjacks the ‘thinking part of our brain’
The Science
When we're in control of things and we're not feeling overwhelmed or stressed, then the front part of our brain, called the prefrontal cortex, has tight control over thoughts and emotions and actions and helps us make decisions.
But when we're stressed, the amygdala throws out all the adrenaline we have, represented by the red arrows, and the adrenaline is activating cortisol. In that situation, the amygdala is capturing what's happening in that prefrontal cortex.
This means green arrows have gone and only the red arrows remain, meaning we've got weaker control of our thoughts – weaker control of the way we respond to our emotions and weaker control of the actions we take, because the amygdala has highjacked this ‘thinking’ part of our brain.
When we are supporting someone it’s useful to remember this and question what is happening for those you’re supporting. Is this young person able to think for themselves or are they currently in a highly stressful situation and has the amygdala hi-jacked their pre-frontal cortex?
Stressed vs Unstressed:
Why does this happen?
The Science
It's important to remember that brains aren't fully developed until the age of 25
The Science
It’s key to remember that our brains aren’t fully developed until we are 25. Particularly in our teenage years these signals from the prefrontal cortex are already weak, having much less control of our thoughts, emotions and actions. Even when we’re not stressed we aren’t in full control. An unstressed pre-adolescent won’t have full control of the thinking part of their brain.
This can be useful to remember when we have a young person in front of us: they have weaker control of their thoughts, weaker control of the way they respond to their emotions and weaker control of the actions that they take, with no logic relating to the consequences of those actions because in a stressful situation the amygdala has hi-jacked the thinking part of their brain.
Stressed vs Unstressed:
Why is this different in teenagers?
Useful resources
The Science
Does someone in the family care for others?
Are you a young person who is caring for someone at home?
This is a helpful resource to help young people share information about themselves Caring Together - Year 6 Young Carer Transitions Booklet
Caregivers Support
Are you a parent with caring responsibilities ?
A carer is anyone, including children and adults who looks after a family member, partner or friend who needs help because of their illness, frailty, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction and cannot cope without their support. The care they give is unpaid and they may or may not live with the person they care for.
Useful resources
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/social-care-and-support-guide/
Caregivers Support
If you register as a carer with Devon Carers, they will also notify your GP of your caring status.
You are a carer if:
1. Do you look after someone? Remember a carer is not paid or a formal volunteer. If your answer is no to question 1, you are not a carer.
If you answered yes to question 1, please answer the following three questions:
2. Are you looking after yourself?
3. Do you have support from family or friends in your caring role?
4. Do you have all the help and support you need?
If you answered yes to all of questions 2-4 please use their website to find out what information and self-help is available to you.
If you answered no to any of questions 2-4 please contact them to request an assessment of your needs.
Does someone in the family care for others?
Why take this approach?
How will life change for parents and caregivers?
How might you prepare for the change as a parent, a practitioner or a school staff member?
Change for Caregivers
Change for Caregivers
Preparing yourself for the up coming ‘empty nest’ can be useful, especially when your youngest child moves on from a primary school setting. Some parents find this hard, no longer seeing their peers in the playgroup at school pick up time and swapping stories about how their children are getting on. It’s useful to consider your own feelings and how your day might change.
This also applies to practitioners and school staff who have been supporting a young person for many years. Although you will have new students coming through, you may well also experience a sense of loss for those you have nurtured through their early childhood years.
How will life change for parents and caregivers?
Why take this approach?
How will life change for parents and caregivers?
Useful resources
Change for Caregivers
Navigating Change Contributing Partners
YMCA
HEADS UP
ESTEEM TEAM
TOR SUPPORT
YOUNG DEVON
NORMAL MAGIC
EPIC SOLUTIONS
PARENTAL MINDS
FAMILY RESOURCE
ACTION EAST DEVON
BOUNCE, BRIGHTER FUTURES
YOUTH ARTS & HEALTH TRUST
DEVON MENTAL HEALTH ALLIANCE
Co-production
Additional Partners
PLACE2BE
FAMILY COMPASS
Network Members
Life Chance Trust
Mental Health in Schools Team
This resource was co-produced by the Family Minds partnership; you can find out more about the organisations involved, and the support they offer, on the final slide. We hope you have found this resource useful. If you still have any worries or questions, please get in touch with your child’s new school and ask who you can talk to about them. There are also some helpful links on the next slide.
Specific resources on transitioning to secondary school:
Back to school tips for new term:
Dealing with change (general):
Bullying:
Other:
Helpful links