Question
My son has just started secondary school and seems a little overwhelmed by the step up in level. Gone is the bubbly little boy who could not wait to recount the day’s events in the car on the way home.
I have spoken to his year head, who was very reassuring. She stated that it takes a few months for children to adapt to the new challenges of second level.
Should I be worried at his seeming reticence to talk about how he is getting on?
Answer
I would concur with your son’s year head. The transition from primary to second level is a huge one in any child’s life.
Overnight they have gone from being the senior students to the most junior. This can be quite intimidating and the potential for bullying – both within his new peer group, as certain students begin to mark out their territory, or older students taking advantage of the vulnerability of the new arrivals – is something that all the teachers but particularly the year head will be keenly observing.
He has to learn the names of up to a dozen, if not more, teachers. Previously he had a single teacher for an entire year, whose every action quickly became familiar.
Now he has to adapt to each one’s teaching styles.
Most schools also accommodate a number of both first- and second-year postgraduate master’s student teachers, who often share a subject with an experienced teacher. After all, how do aspiring teachers learn their trade? PME students tend to be allocated first- and second-year classes so the number of new faces can often exceed fifteen or sixteen. This is an awful lot of change to take on board when you are 11 or 12 years old.
Apart from the multiple teachers, there is also the constant movement from the moment he enters his school building each morning. Instead of heading for a familiar classroom, he instead heads for a set of lockers where all his school based texts are stored. He has to remember which subjects he has for the early morning classes and what homework, if any, he must bring to class.
He will return to his locker at least three to four times a day to extract the latest classroom requirements, and deposit those he has just used. You can imagine the state of his locker at the end of a day’s activity.
Getting it in shape before leaving the building when tired, so that he can manage the following day’s requirements, is a big learning experience.
Given the nature of the second-level school timetable, when he arrives home he will have to organise his homework to ensure that he prioritises what is due the following day, remembering when he has physical education so that he brings in his sports gear on the right day.
It has always amazed me over a lifetime of teaching how incoming first-year students adapt to the radically changed environment. By Halloween, the vast majority have fully integrated themselves into the day-to-day routine of the big school.
Having said that, I would not in any way dismiss your concerns. If his mood remains subdued I would definitely contact his year head again to see if the teachers have any observations on his adaptation to the new challenges he is grappling with.
askbrian@irishtimes.com
