When I picked my kids up from school, my heart wanted to break for my poor boy after his first day. Plunged into the scary unknown he found himself without anyone he knew from his old school in his lessons. He did have one friend in his tutor group, but this only meets at form time in the begining of the day. The school runs a vertical tutoring group system where each group has 4-5 kids from each year group in it. The system works well for peer mentoring.
Back to day one, the building repair works, started during the holidays had overrun and some rooms were unavailable for teaching. Only the new year 7’s and the oldest Year 11’s attended yesturday. After initial school tours and photos lessons began. My son didn’t understand from his tutor that he would attend taster lessons. Of the four lessons, he had room errors in three of them. A shy child at best he had to tell the teacher he wasn’t on her list, or he turned up at the wrong room. My heart just broke when he said children had laughed at him. Naturally he wanted to curl up in a ball and die of embaressment. He most certainly didn’t want to return for a second day of torture.
As a caring mother I have been in touch with the school to see if he had the right timetable and asked them to make it clear when room changes occur, especially for the new kids. Then together with my oldest child we went over routes to lessons and where rooms were. He now has a multi-coloured map. He has bravely gone off today with the intention to make one new friend, not get lost and to make it through to the end of the day. Me? After very little sleep, I’m home and a blubbering mess!!
Rosie Amber 