The transition to a new school year can either be successful or stressful. Some children struggle with this time of the year as they feel insecure and are filled with dread towards such a big change. Supporting your child with a few strategies can be an integral part of helping them to adjust their new situation. This will help to change your child’s thoughts from one of fear, concern, or apprehension to hopeful, optimistic and even excitement!

You can support your child through this time by advocating for their thoughts and feelings towards the big change by:

Chatting to their current teacher to understand the transition support already in place

• Advocating if you feel your child needs additional support to transition successfully

Organising for your child to spend 5/10 minutes meeting their new teacher at the end of the year

• Your child can write down a few questions they have for their new teacher to help ease their feelings towards the ‘unknowns’

• Encouraging your child to write a letter/fill out an ‘all about me’ worksheet and send it to their new teacher where they can share their likes, dislikes, what works for them, things they struggle with, their goals or any questions they may have

Organising for your child to visit their new classroom close to the end of the year

• This helps your child to familiarise themselves with how to get to their new classroom, where their belongings might go, where the closest bathrooms are, where their new playground may be and much more!

• You can also take lots of pictures of your child in their new environment to make a story with over the school holidays or keep these pictures handy to go through with your child through the school holidays. This will help your child to continue to be familiar with their new environment even through the summer school holidays

Organising a time to chat with the new teacher

• This is where you can help support your child by understanding and discussing the following with your child:

• What will stay the same next year?

• What will be different next year?

• Will there be incursions/excursions/camps?

• Will there be extra classes/new subjects?

• How much homework might there be?

• Will there be any class rewards?

• What are some class rules?

Alternatively, you can chat to your Occupational Therapist at Building Blocks Therapy who can guide and support you and your child through this tricky time!

Building Blocks Therapy will be running two Programs of Support in the 2022 January School Holidays focusing on these transitions, including:

• Supporting your child’s transition between kinder and primary school (Preptastic)

• Supporting your child’s transition between primary school and high school (Class of ’21)