From Middle To High School

Acceleration Academy


From Middle School To High School




Moving from Middle to High School

Brought to you by National PTA


Moving Up

The move from middle to high school is one of those times when your child needs you most, but is often too embarrassed to ask for support. You may have noticed that your child is beginning to push away from you. Try to respect this. On the other hand, it's important to balance a respect for your child's desire for independence with a very real need to stay involved in his life and education.

Starting high school is a major rite of passage for adolescents, says George White, associate professor of educational leadership at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and a former middle-school principal. The social and emotional fears that incoming freshmen deal with can have a direct impact on their academic performance.

Changes at School

The difference in size of your child's old and new schools can have a big impact on her transition, says school psychologist Sal Severe, author of How to Behave So Your Child Will, Too! Kids from smaller school districts may face a kind of culture shock in large, regional high schools. Larger class sizes, more students, a bigger campus, and teaching styles more focused on the subject matter than the needs of individual students can be difficult for incoming freshmen.

"Parents should expect schools to provide a protective growth environment" for incoming freshmen, George White says. The developmental divide between ninth-graders, who could be as young as 14, and upperclassmen, who could be over 18, can be extreme. Exceptionally bright ninth- graders can end up in classes with much older teens and may be unprepared socially. "There's a wide range of social development in high school. What you have to have is a socially safe place for younger individuals."

Ninth-graders also face a big step down in social status, going from the top of the heap in their previous school to the lowest rung in high school. They arrive as the new kids, the young ones, the ones who don't know what's what and who's who.

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