The leap from primary to secondary school for many children can be a daunting and overwhelming experience.  Students are still quite young, and they’re suddenly expected to be a lot more independent, in an entirely new environment, with new people, new teachers, and a timetable that means moving between classrooms.  Consequently for some children this can massively impact their self-confidence. The best way to approach this new challenge is to support students to establish good habits early.

If your child tends to struggle with low self-esteem, you will find helpful guidance in this article from Young Minds.  You may also find this blog Mindfulness and The Transition to Secondary School   written by Carol from Chatterminds helpful to support your child during this significant transition.

In addition to the valuable insights offered in this blog about Empowering Your Child for Success: Expert Tips for the New School Year, here are my top three tips for building confidence in Year 7.

Build note-taking skills early in Year 7 in order to build a good set of notes by exam time

The curriculum that is covered in Year 7 serves as a foundation to subsequent years, and may therefore need to be recalled several times in future.  Ensuring a strong grasp of this content is important, however with the overwhelm of a new year in a new school, it can be challenging to build long term memories.  It is therefore critical for students to get good at taking notes, and this is something that can be practised with summer projects, or with a tutor.

If students can make good notes ‘in the moment’ they can refer back to them in the relative calm and familiar surroundings of their home.  This reduces the impact of any overwhelming emotions they may experience at their new school.  Additionally, this skill can help them to make new friends at school, by sharing notes and studying together.  Remember, everyone is experiencing relatively similar circumstances, thus this provides a sense of unity. 

If this is something your child struggles with, the guidance in this blog may help.

Get comfortable with the content and then get comfortable with exams

The move into year 7 can bring with it a few of the exams associated with secondary school.  While these exams may not necessarily be imminent (although there are probably a lot more topic tests through the year) that doesn’t make them any less scary.

I encourage students to build confidence with the content they are studying before dwelling too much on preparing for exams. Their ‘big’ exams are a long way off. Topic tests which focus on individual subjects at a time are a lot easier to prepare for.

Once students feel confident in their understanding of the content and can comfortably discuss it with their tutor or study partner, they are ready to practise with exam questions and learn about mark schemes, problem solving, and interleaving (all valuable exam preparation strategies).

Here’s what some other students have suggested helped them in year 7 (please note: this article contains adverts)

Tutors can help support and speed up a student’s confidence building

For a student who is feeling overwhelmed and lacking in confidence, it can be difficult to see the next step.  They might feel they are making little progress compared to their peers.  Homework might feel like it is too much, making them feel like giving up.

A tutor can make a big difference in a relatively short time for these students.  Having seen this path they need to follow with previous students facing similar hurdles. Supporting students by providing tailored guidance, designed to meet the needs of the each individual student.  

Once students are more comfortable with the content, a tutor can help practise aligning answers with the specific question – what to focus on, what the specific question is asking and what to share to get the marks.  The benefit of tuition is that it is truly bespoke to the individual student.

You can read more about this in my blog on  Bespoke Learning & Education – What does this mean in practice?

If you or your child would like some additional support with building confidence in year 7, get in touch for a no obligation conversation.  Or register your interest here for our group classes.