Middle School Transition Essay

My earliest memories of school fill me with dread, resentment and an overall feeling of being ‘let down’ by my teachers. I only have fond memories of my lower school – it was warm, my teachers were kind and I had a lot of friends. As soon as I moved up to middle school, the lovely warm feeling school gave me popped and dissolved as quickly as a bubble would when it hits the ground.
Transitioning to middle school for me summed up two words ‘big changes’, naively I could never imagine this change would be one of such negativity that would have a long lasting impact on me even now in adulthood. The transition from any school establishment for a young child is a tremendously important time in their lives, and there is evidence to suggest that for vulnerable children additional support and interventions will need to be put in place before the transition takes place (McGee et al. 2004).
No one sat down with me and told me what all these changes were going to be, so I
Rae (2014, p.3) explains it is evitable that change will bring about some element of loss, even when the change may be a positive one; children are inclined to forget elements of what happened previously in order to come to terms with their loss. As depicted in the EPPSE Project (Evangelou et al. 2008) a large proportion of children and young adults are able to quickly adapt to their new environment. However, there are some children and young adults (like me) who have experienced change and loss at the same time, who were not appropriately or adequately supported at the time, who present as acutely anxious and/or ostensibly unable to cope. This is why I feel that a programme of support for children who are transiting is so essential, not only in terms of guaranteeing the child’s overall well-being but also as a tool to support individualised learning and educational