Stepping forward: the Year 6 to Year 7 transition animation

Try to stay away from negative questions, and focus on positive questions. For example instead of ‘What are you worried about?’, ask ‘What are you looking forward to?’

When a young person is worried about something, they are often also excited. 

For example:

• ‘I’m worried about getting lost in a big, new school’ can also be ‘joining a big school with lots of new facilities/opportunities is exciting’.
• ‘I’m worried about making friends’ can also be ‘I’m going to meet so many new people’.
• ‘I’m scared the work will be too difficult’ can also be ‘I get to try lots of different subjects and learn new things’.

Which statement a child most closely relates to will depend on their mood at the time, and they may fluctuate regularly between the two. 

Transitioning to secondary school is a significant life event so conflicting/overlapping emotions are to be expected; it’s possible to be both fearful and excited about the same thing at the same time.

Rather than using headings like ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ (which can equate to good/ bad), we suggest using ‘opportunity’ and ‘challenge’, which are more neutral.

Task 1: Start by listing opportunities – what’s exciting/new/to be looked forward to? 

If your child needs help with this, remember to include suggestions about everything, including new food at lunchtime, uniform, different route/method of getting to school, not just the elements relating directly to learning. 

Task 2: List the challenges.

These may range from having to wake up earlier right through to the usual fears and worries about navigating a new school, remembering a new timetable, making new friends etc. 

Task 3: Look for similarities between the opportunities and challenges.

Ask your child what strategies/ideas/support might be helpful to manage the challenges, for example, a new alarm clock, reminders that all year 7’s will have the same initial challenges.