Parents' Association News - Archived

The transition from primary School to Secondary is a very exiting time for most Children and is a big step for them. This can also be a very stressful time for Children and Parents alike and in particular the first few weeks are very important and they will need support and encouragement. Last year was the first year for Children in St Patrick's to complete the Primary School cycle and marked another milestone in the Schools short history.
This year is every bit as important for all the pupils who will start Secondary School in September 2010. We asked some of the Pupils who left St Patrick's last year to share their experience of life in the first 6 months of Secondary School and in doing so they may be able to help some of the pupils starting this September to make their transition into Secondary School a more enjoyable and stress free experience. We also asked their Parents to share any information or advice that they feel would be useful.
We asked an equal number of Boys and Girls to try and get as broad experience as possible.

PUPILS

• "It is very difficult at first trying to find your way around the School and moving between classes, but after a while you get to know your way around. I found that putting a timetable on my locker door helped me, as I could easily look up at it when sorting my books for class."
• "I found that by colour co-ordinating my school copy books by subject it made it easier to sort them out. I also put coloured labels with my name on them on my text books, which helped to make it easier to get them ready for class"
• "Although I knew one or two people in my new class, I found that by staying in for lunch that I was able to make lots of new friends and get to know my new classmates"
• "I didn't realise how heavy my schoolbag was going to be. At first I was bringing too many books, but soon learned to only bring what I needed. It is very important to read your timetable the day before and get to know what books to bring"
• "It was really strange getting homework at weekends at first. Don't leave all your homework until the night before, as I was really tired at first. But then I managed my homework by spreading it out, as sometimes you don't have to have homework in for a few days" "Make sure to write everything in your journal and look at it every day, so that you don't forget anything"
• "Make sure to get a locker that you can reach. I had to swap with someone taller than me, as I could not reach mine"
• "I get up much earlier every morning, so that I can make sure that I am not late for School and do not forget anything. At first it was hard, but now I am used to it and I don't stay up as late as I did at first"

PARENTS

• If there is a homework club available, encourage you child to get involved. At first homework was taking a few hours, but once our child got involved in the homework club, it was a great way of helping them with homework and helping to learn how to study.
• Encourage your child to get involved in some sort of extra curricular activity. It is another way of making new friends and helps them integrate into the School.
• Encourage your child to do weekend homework on Friday, so that the weekend is free and avoid spoiling Sunday by leaving it until then.
• Initial expense of books and uniform was more than I expected. You may need to budget for these as early as possible.
• The weight of the School bag is incredible. Help your child in the beginning to organise their books so that they have the minimum amount of books to carry.
• There was a noticeable difference in our child and be prepared for them to want to push boundaries and be more independent. Encourage them and meet them half way.
• Lots of new rules for the child to get to know. Read through any documents with your child and help them to understand them and also, familiarise yourself with them, so you understand them too. Help them get into the habit of adhering to the many rules.
• First few weeks can be very stressful for the child and it is at this time that they need all the help and encouragement from you. Talk to them and try and understand any concerns they might have. Our experience is that if you help them in the first few weeks (6-8 weeks) they will benefit greatly and will find their own feet.
• It can be very daunting for the child at first and they may feel like a small fish in a big pond. Encourage them at every opportunity to make new friends, either through extra curricular activity, staying in for lunch e.t.c
• Don't worry too much in the beginning about the academic achievements, as we found that once the child was happy and settled in OK, he blossomed in the academic side of things. Help them with the day to day problems and encourage them.
• We found that the longer School day took a while to get used to. Make sure that your child has enough lunch for the longer day and appropriate breakfast.
• It's hard for the children to get it into their heads that this is a 3 year course and they have to keep good notes.
• With the longer day in school, they were very tired initially.

Most of the Children and Parents had a lot of things in common and the same things cropped up. All the Parents agreed that spending as much time as possible in the first few weeks and going through the simple problems reaps rewards

Internet Safety - A parents talk.

A talk is being organised for parents on Internet Safety in order to take the mystery out of the Internet and to give them the skills to engage with their children's online lives -details to follow.