Quick Tips on Preparing for Middle School

What You Need to Know

Both scary and exciting, the transition from elementary to middle or junior high school can raise questions for both parents and students. You can help ease the transition by gathering information and staying involved in your child's education.

This school transition will result in more personal responsibilities than your child had in elementary school. 

• Changing classes several times daily
• Juggling six different teachers, and their six (or more) different personalities
• Memorizing their class schedules
• Remembering to grab all the right supplies for the right class in-between bells
• Enduring severer consequences for poor behavior than in previous years

On top of this, the school's likely to be much larger, with hundreds of kids besides the peers they're used to pouring in from a collection of other elementary schools. Consequently, they may not see as many of their old friends in class as they had counted on.

How You Can Help

• Visit the school to get a feel for the environment before enrolling. The orientation most schools offer for newcomers might be ideal for this, or a phone call or meeting with a guidance counselor or administrator might also be helpful in giving you a chance to ask more personalized and direct questions if you have them. Register well in advance of the first week to avoid getting your child stuck in the last choice electives.
• Allow yourself to be a constructive sounding board as your child makes sense of these adjustments. Encourage him to come to you if he's having any problems.
• Talk to your child about the opportunities that middle school offers to excel in the areas of personal interests though electives, clubs, and sports. Encourage your child to partake and expand his skills and talents.
• Make sure your child's wardrobe is in accordance with any dress policies the school has set.
• If your child's school doesn't provide lockers to visit in between classes, be extra thoughtful about the backpack you purchase if he's going to lug around all his heavy books all day long.

For more on this topic, please see the full article:

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