Preparing Our Son for Junior High School

My, how fast the years fly by! My wife and I can hardly believe that our son will soon leave elementary school and begin life as a pre-teen. This means that he will also venture into a new stage of life and his academic career that we affectionately call junior high school. For adults, junior high can seem so long ago that we may forget many of our daily experiences. For a junior high newbie, though, it can feel like a whole new world of frustration, confusion, and excitement. Fortunately for our son, he has two teachers for parents, and since we see both sides, we can make this transition much easier on him and, therefore, ourselves.

Class changes

My son attends the same school at which I teach, so he sees a little of the experience when he comes to my classroom when he gets out for the day. Throughout elementary school, our son has had one main teacher for his academic subjects and other teachers for various extracurricular subjects. On different days each week, he would rotate between chapel, computer class, Spanish, physical education, and library time. Mostly, he stayed with the same teacher throughout the day.

In junior high he will have to change classes every hour, which means using a locker and planning a path to get to each class on time. The hallways get very crowded and noisy, and students like to congregate and socialize. As long as he goes to class while he talks, we will not mind; we will not tolerate tardiness. He will get used to the routine before too long and make it easier on himself once he does.

More homework

The elementary teachers see the same kids for most subjects, so they can plan what homework to assign each night. In junior high, our son will have his core classes of English, math, science, and history. His electives will include physical education, and a half-year each of computer and study skills. In our Christian school, he will also have a Bible class each day. Junior high school teachers may each give homework on the same night, totaling up to six assignments (excluding physical education), but that normally does not happen. Our son will join the honors program, so he may get a little more homework. He will have to keep track of it on his own in a special agenda book and learn to bring more books back and forth between school and home.

Extracurricular academic activities

Our son is currently in the National Junior Beta Club in elementary school. Beginning in junior high, he can join the Science Club, National Junior Honor Society, Drama Club, Bible Club, and other academic activities. These allow students to get together after (sometimes during) school to work on projects, programs, and other ventures. Many of our clubs have field trips and occasional overnight trips to add fun to the learning. We have already begun encouraging him to think ahead to which clubs he would like to join - enough to enjoy himself but not so much that it overwhelms him.

School Sports

We have also already begun encouraging him to consider which sports to play in school. We want him to stay active, so he must play something, but we will let him choose. He is very good at baseball, and he also loves basketball. The negative is that he will be among the younger and smaller kids during his first year of junior high. Our school has vast numbers of kids who try out for the junior high teams. That makes it more difficult. However, we have such a wide variety of sports that he can find some that he will enjoy and make the teams with significant playing time. If he does not want to play school sports right away, he will still play in the local neighborhood and Little Leagues and then join the school teams later.

More than academics

Junior high kids deal with so much more than academics. However, we feel that preparing now for the academic aspects of junior high will make the emotional transitions easier when they come along. As parents, we want him to succeed, and we will prepare him as much as possible. As teachers, we know how to prepare him even more from the educational standpoint.

More from this contributor:

Keeping Track of Our Son's Homework
Making Sure Our Son Chooses Good Friends
Daily Activities Make Great Math Lessons: A Parent's Perspective