This will be the strangest Year 6-7 Transition Plan we have put in place, and though many of us as parents will remember we survived being thrown into secondary school without a ‘transition’, we would still rather things were back to normal.
Even so, we have contacted all Year 6 parents this week to map out a route for visiting the school, meeting key staff, meeting other children in tutor groups, and most importantly seeing that we are very excited about the Year 6s joining us and becoming part of our story.
The following letter went out from Lottie Hearn, Assistant Headteacher and our transition co-ordinator, to all Year 6 parents this week:
Dear Parents and Carers,
I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you to The Friary School and outline how we are going to be supporting your child, and you, through transition to high school. This letter also tells you which House and tutor group your child will be in as well as offer an opportunity for them to visit us before the summer holidays.
As a school we are now entering the final stages of our transition programme for this year. Since lockdown began, we have been in touch with primary schools and Year 6 teachers to find out as much as we can about your child so that we are prepared for a smooth start in September. We feel so privileged to be having so many fantastic children join us in Year 7 this Autumn and can’t wait to get to meet you all.
Sadly, this year we will not be able to run our two day transition programme for pupils. Instead, we have allocated a time for your child to come and meet their Head of House and tutor. Each pupil will have an opportunity to learn about starting school in September as well as have a chance to have a look around and get to know a few other people in their tutor group. This will be done in small socially distanced groups over two days. No other year groups, besides the children of key workers, will be in school on these days in order for us to comply with our current health and safety procedures. Our Heads of House will meet your child at the front of school and direct them to their tutor. Each session will last for one hour. During this time we would ask you to respect social distancing rules and avoid socialising with other parents whilst waiting for your child to return. Our Learning Support and Student Support teams will be on site during these days and will be available to discuss particular issues you may have regarding your child. Please email me in advance if you would like to do this and a relevant member of the team will get back to you.
In addition to this we will be publishing a weekly newsletter for Y6 pupils called the ‘Transition Times’. It will contain lots of interesting information about what our school is like, their teachers and support staff as well as what to expect during their first days at The Friary. There will also be some short activities for them to try as well as a competition to help them earn their first House points! The newsletter will be emailed to you and posted on our website (www.friaryschool.co.uk).
Our website contains lots of information about the school and will be the main platform for communication over the coming weeks. It is regularly updated with current news and information and will be home to a series of transition videos for you and your child to watch together. We will notify you of new uploads by email so that you don’t miss out on anything! On Thursday 25th June we will be posting a number of videos for parents with information that would have been shared on the Year 6 parents evening on the same date. If you have any specific questions you’d like to ask us, please email them to the address at the end of this letter and we will try and make sure we answer them in the video or contact you directly.
Many of you will be wanting to start preparations for September and one of the biggest jobs will be to purchase a new school uniform. This year is like no other, and in order to help you Uniforms Plus in Lichfield now has an online shop where you can order the branded elements of our uniform. Please visit www.uniformsplus.co.uk for more details. It is worth mentioning that many items on our uniform list can be purchased from alternative suppliers to help meet different budgets.
Finally, I’d like to reassure you all that we will do everything we can to ensure a smooth transition to high school. We are ready to work with you to get to know your child so that we can help them to be the very best they can be. In the meantime, encourage them to look forward to being back at school, meeting new people, learning new things and perhaps being a little more independent than before. We’re looking forward to seeing you all soon.
Matt Allman, Headteacher, said: “I have had a chance to meet a growing number of Year 6s and those experiences only add to the more general picture that we have a fantastic year group coming in. I am looking forward to meeting more of them over the next few weeks and have everything crossed that we can welcome them to daily school in September.”
