Our Year 7 Transition Day for Year 6s will be a full taster day of senior school on Friday 1st July.

If your child is currently in the Junior School in Year 6 or if you’ve applied for a place from elsewhere, your new ‘student’ needs to arrive at 8:30am outside Main House, in suitable attire for a day of learning, equipped with a pencil case. Lunch is provided but if they wish to have a snack for break time, have that in their school bag (as lunch will feel like a long way off!) Sports kit is not required. This is a real-world taster day so the day will end at the normal senior school end time of 4:20pm.

Many of our Year 6s transitioning from the Junior School are familiar with most of the site so we’ve put together a programme that will let them see what they may not have seen and to get a feel for what senior learning is like. The most obvious change is that seniors move around from room to room, meeting different teachers for different subjects, but they’ll still have their own tight-knit family group which will be their Tutor Group. We’ll explain how all this works.

We’ll start the day with a ‘get to know each other’ session and an orientation treasure trail around the many rooms, buildings, outside areas, nooks and crannies that they may find themselves in from September. They’ll also have a full briefing on what they can expect and what’s expected of them day to day in the new term.

Then they’ll have hour-long periods of introductory lessons featuring: English, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and German. These are the subjects where they’ll notice the biggest change in how they’ve engaged with those subjects before with many aspects completely new. They’ll notice that many of the lessons will be more hands-on and active that they might expect. There may not be much sitting down – there won’t be time!

They day will end with a question and answer session joined by some of our current Year 7s who be able to reveal all the pitfalls and tricks to make the most of their time and how to get up and running sooner without worries. Overall it will be an intensive but fun and exciting day and we’ll return your senior student to you at 4:20pm with their head spinning and possibly exhausted . . . as a full taster day of senior school should do!

Ayd Instone, Head of Curriculum Enrichment and Communications