Students in their primary school years may be very used to the routines they have at school and at home with regard to how much work they expect to do.

Students will have developed a sense of ‘safety’ with this consistency and routine: it is only natural with the change to secondary school that some students might worry about how their workload and work practices will also change.

Note that you may have some students who have transitioned in and out of several schools: while these students have had numerous experiences with change, it is still useful for them to engage with the ideas and practise strategies for moving to secondary school.

These students may also have some extra insights for you and their classmates.

This teacher module includes teacher-focused information on the Classroom Activities and Parent and carer resources related to:

• workload and time management;
• academic level and expectations at secondary school; and
• rules and behavioural expectations at secondary school.

For each of these activities, you may find it useful to discuss the possibility of organising a sibling who is currently in secondary school to come and talk to Year 6 students, or an older student at the secondary school to come and talk to Year 7s. This could be a possible ‘mentor’ or ‘buddy’ student. These “managing secondary school expectations” topics can be part of what the visiting student(s) present or discuss with your students, and would complement the topics in the New School Environment module.