Secondary Transition Support

What secondary transition support is for

The change from primary to secondary school happens fast. One week your child sits in one classroom with one teacher who knows their handwriting. The next they are reading a timetable with six subjects before lunch and looking for room 14 in a corridor they have never walked down. The fortnight between those two mornings is where confidence either holds or wobbles.

Transition support is short, focused one-to-one work on the practical side of that change. Sessions usually run for six to eight weeks, starting in the summer term of P7 and picking up again in the first weeks of S1, when homework begins arriving from four teachers at once and nobody is checking the bag but your child. We teach at home or online, one to one, with a qualified tutor who is DBS-checked. Most pupils we see for this are 11 or 12, though we teach school pupils aged 7 to 18, and now and then an older pupil needs the same help after moving school or moving into the area mid-year.

What we do not do is re-teach the whole curriculum. The work is smaller than that: reading a timetable without panic, packing a bag the night before, breaking a project into three steps rather than one lump, knowing how to say "I don't understand this" to a teacher you met nine days ago. It is patient, practical and unglamorous, and it is often the difference between a pupil who settles by October and one who is still flinching in November.

Who it suits, and who it does not

It tends to suit

• Pupils who are doing fine academically but who worry about the unknown: new buildings, six names to learn, the fear of walking into the wrong room.
• Children whose homework vanishes somewhere between the school gate and the kitchen table.
• Pupils who can read a page perfectly well but cannot pull the instruction out of it.
• Families arriving from a smaller primary, another city or another country, where nobody yet knows their child's name.

It is the wrong fit when

If the real difficulty is one subject, say long division or the speed of their handwriting, a block of subject tutoring will do more good and we will say so on the phone rather than take the booking. If your child is in the middle of exam years, that is a different programme with a different shape. And where a pupil has an identified additional support need, we work alongside the school's support staff, share what we see with you, and never claim to replace the provision the school makes. You will get a straight answer in the first conversation about which of those you are looking at.

How the process runs, step by step

1. A conversation with you first

Fifteen or twenty minutes on the phone. What the school has said, what your child says about it, which subjects worry them, and the term dates we are working around. If we think another kind of support fits better, this is where we tell you.

2. An initial assessment with your child

The first session is not a lesson. It lasts around 45 minutes and covers reading aloud, a short piece of independent writing, some number work, and a proper talk about what they are dreading. Pupils are usually relieved to be asked directly.

3. A personal learning plan, before teaching starts

We write the plan and send it to you before the first teaching lesson. It names four or five goals, the order we will tackle them in, the materials we will use and the date we will review. Our lead tutor reads and signs off every plan, which keeps the standard the same whether your lessons happen in Shawlands or online on a wet Tuesday.

4. The lessons themselves

Weekly, 45 to 50 minutes, with the same tutor throughout wherever we can manage it. Sessions mix a quick routine at the start (bag, planner, what is due when) with the specific skill for that week, then finish with something your child can do on their own before the next time.

5. A review at the halfway point

A short call to you, and a note of anything that needs changing. Sometimes the goal shifts once we know the pupil better.

6. A written progress report at the end

What has improved, what is still fragile, and what to keep doing through the first term of S1. Parents get a copy, and you are free to pass it to the school.

What to have ready before the first session

Nothing needs buying. It helps if you can put these on the table for the assessment: the school's transition booklet, the timetable once it arrives, whichever planner or homework app the school uses, and one recent piece of schoolwork. Bring the messy version rather than the neat one, because we learn more from a page with crossings out on it. If the primary school has written reports, have those to hand as well.

At home, a table with a bit of quiet beats the kitchen island at teatime. Pencil the lesson into the family calendar so it is not the thing that gets moved every week. In our experience the pupils who settle quickest are not the ones with the most tutoring, they are the ones whose families treat the session as fixed.

What affects the timing and the fee

Timing first. Families who start in May or June get the summer to practise the routine before it matters. Families who start in late August get something more urgent and slightly shorter. Scottish secondaries go back in mid-August, English ones in early September, and that difference changes how many sessions fit before the first homework avalanche. Tutor availability in your area matters too, and so does whether lessons happen at home or online.

Fees are quoted on request when you book, because the honest answer depends on how many sessions you want, whether a tutor is travelling to your home, and whether this sits alongside an existing weekly slot. We do not publish a single rate that would be wrong for half the families who call. Ask on the phone and you will get a clear figure before anything is agreed.

Questions parents ask

Does this duplicate what the school already does?

It builds on it. Most secondaries run transition days in June, and we use the booklet and timetable they send home. The school introduces the building and the staff. We make sure your child can act on what they were told.

How many sessions will we need?

Six to eight is typical, reviewed at the halfway point. Some pupils need three. We will not stretch a block out to fill a calendar.

Does my child have to be behind to benefit?

No. Plenty of the pupils we see are at or above the expected level and simply find the change unsettling. Confidence and attainment are not the same thing.

Can you speak to the school?

Only with your permission, and usually through you. Parents share our progress report with the school far more often than we contact staff directly, and that tends to work better for everyone.

Is it at home or online?

Either. Home lessons suit pupils who focus better away from a screen; online lessons remove travel and suit busy households. Both are one to one, both are taught by the same DBS-checked, qualified tutors, and both come with progress reports for parents.