Transitions
Transitions
This covers the moves a child makes through childhood: from nursery to reception, from primary to secondary, and from sixth form to whatever comes next. Each change asks something of the whole family as well as the child. These pages are for parents in the weeks before and after, while the new routine settles.
What the library says about this, in one place. It is also online at theparentbook.com/help/transitions
What to do first
Children handle change better when the adults around them are honest about it and aren’t relentlessly upbeat. A wobble at a transition is normal; it’s what a real change costs.
- Go through the timetable out loud, in plain terms, including what you don’t know yet. Uncertainty a child can put into words is easier for them than uncertainty they can only feel.
- Keep two or three family routines exactly as they are through the change: the bedtime book, Saturday mornings, the same supper on the same night each week.
- Tell the new school, or the old one, what’s happening, so that someone other than you is keeping an eye on your child.
What helps
- Keep the last week before the change predictable. Don’t fill it with new things. A child accepts a change more easily when the days leading up to it are familiar, and routine is comforting in itself.
- Get to know what’s coming. Walk past the new school, find the classroom on the website and lay out the uniform together. Children settle as the unknown becomes a little more familiar.
Some tips to try
Short pieces from the library, and a first thing to try from each.
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The First Phone Call Back.
A short, slightly distracted first call from university is a good sign that your child is settling in.
- Take the call at face value; a brief call is a good sign.
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The Week Before Your Child Leaves.
The week before your child leaves for university is one of the hardest; do less than you think it needs.
- Do less than you think the week needs.
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Leaving the House Your Child Loved.
Give your child time to say goodbye to the places they loved before the boxes go.
- Photograph the doorframe, the garden corner and the view from your child’s window.
The rest of each tip, with more to try and why it works, is in the library.
Something to do together
A page about me, for a new teacher. Before a new class or a new school, your child tells their teacher, in their own words, what they enjoy, what they find hard and what helps. You write it down together and hand it in.
What it is for. A new teacher starts the year not knowing what helped your child last year. YoungMinds advises telling school staff early what a child finds difficult and what helps. A page in your child’s own words does that before term starts, and gives them a say in what their new teacher is told about them.
- The first step. Choose a calm afternoon a week or two before the new class or school starts, and ask: “Your new teacher doesn’t know you yet. Shall we make a page for them about what helps you?”
Safety. Medical needs, such as allergies, asthma or medicines, go to the school from you directly and not on your child’s page, so that the right people have them. The page has your child’s name and perhaps their photograph on it. Hand it in or send it by school email, and don’t post it anywhere public.
When to get help. If, several weeks into the year, your child is dreading school, has stomach aches on school mornings or says the teacher doesn’t understand them, talk to their class teacher and, if your child has or may have special educational needs, the SENCo. If the stomach aches keep coming back, or your child’s sleep, eating or mood have changed and not changed back, talk to your GP as well. If what your child writes or says suggests that someone is hurting them, that they are hurting themselves, or that they do not want to be alive, stay calm, thank them for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page.
The other five steps, and your part in it, are in the library.
If you want to read further
- The 11+ Year. For parents whose child is preparing for school entrance exams. theparentbook.com/reader/eleven-plus-and-the-pressure-of-the-thing-ahead
- The Move to Secondary School. For parents whose child is about to go from being one of the oldest at school to one of the youngest. theparentbook.com/reader/the-move-to-secondary-school
Worth your time
- A book for you: Middle School Matters, Phyllis L. Fagell. Drawing on years of work in schools, Phyllis Fagell guides parents through ages 10 to 14, including the move to secondary school, friendship upheaval, good decision-making and learning from failure.
- A book to read together: I Am Too Absolutely Small for School, Lauren Child. Lola is sure she is too small for school, and her big brother Charlie answers each worry with patience and humour. A funny, reassuring book for the months before a child starts Reception. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/charlie-and-lola-i-am-too-absolutely-small-for-school-lauren-child/c69f29470a1f135c
- Something to watch: Moving Up! The transition to secondary school, Anna Freud, YouTube. An animation for Year 6 and 7 pupils about the move to secondary school, the worries that are normal and what helps. Good to watch together in the summer before. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFpVOIpeksk
- Something to listen to: Let’s Talk Back-to-School, Good Inside with Dr. Becky, 29 min. Why a new school year unsettles children and parents alike, why younger behaviour can come back, and routines that keep things steady. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lets-talk-back-to-school/id1561689671?i=1000722610833
Who else can help
Most transitions are handled best by the two institutions on either side of them. Tell both schools what you are seeing; they will have seen it before.
- Your child’s school. The pastoral lead, the head of year, or the form tutor. Free, already knows your child, and often the quickest way to get something changed at school. Before or alongside anything else. A school cannot act on what it has not been told, and what you bring is often what it did not have.
- Your GP. The gateway to everything the NHS offers a child: paediatric assessment, a referral to CAMHS, and support for you as the parent. Ask for a double appointment. Describe the pattern over weeks rather than the worst single day, and say plainly what you are worried about. Bring a written list; the ten minutes go quickly. www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-gp
- Place2Be. Parenting Smart, written by the child mental health specialists who work in primary schools: short, practical articles and films on friendships, behaviour, worries and routines. For a child of five to eleven, when you want something you can read in ten minutes and try tonight. Place2Be’s counselling itself is only through partner schools. parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk
- YoungMinds. The UK’s young people’s mental health charity, with a free Parents Helpline, webchat and email, and a plain A to Z of the things parents worry about. When you want to talk through a worry about your child with someone who has heard it before, or read a clear first explanation of a named concern. Not a crisis line. Parents Helpline 0808 802 5544 · Mon, Thu, Fri 9.30am-4pm; Tue, Wed 9.30am-6pm · Webchat Mon-Fri 9.30am-4pm; email parents@youngminds.org.uk · Outside those hours the parents line is closed. The urgent routes on this page are open when it is not. www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-helpline
The full list for transitions, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/transitions/services
Published by Kensington Square Therapy. Company No. 16707111. Written by therapists registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). This page is not therapy, and not a substitute for professional support. The full library is at theparentbook.com.