Setting up September from June

Dear Parents and Carers,

You have a few weeks of school left this academic year. State schools have about four. Private schools, more like two. Either way, in that time the teacher who has spent the year getting to know your child will quietly disappear from their school day. There will be a report. There will be a handover. And someone new will take over in September. The formal handover is fine. It's the informal one, the things only this year's teacher noticed, that usually doesn't happen.

That's where you come in.

The teachers who have had your child for the year know things no one else knows. What sets them off. What calms them down. Where they shine. The week they came back from a school trip somehow taller. The mate who's good for them and the one who isn't. None of that is in the report.

Here's what's worth doing before this term ends.

Ask the right person.

In primary school, that's your child's class teacher. In secondary or sixth form, it's the form tutor or head of year, who can send a round robin to the subject teachers and collate the answers for you. Either way, one question is worth more than ten polite ones: "What's one thing about my child you think next year's teacher should know but probably won't pick up on for a while?" That question gives them permission to tell you the specific thing they've noticed and might never have written down. Send it as an email. Don't leave it to the last week.

Ask your child.

Not "are you looking forward to next year?" That gets a shrug. Try something specific. "What do you want next year to be different from this year?" or "What are you nervous about?" The answer might surprise you. Whatever it is, you now know what to listen for in September.

Ask yourself.

What did you wish you'd asked the school sooner this year? What did you let slide that you wished you hadn't? One honest answer here is worth a hundred resolutions. It's the thing you change in September that you won't otherwise see coming.

Three short conversations. One with the right person at school, one with your child, one with yourself. None of them takes long. Together they set up next September in a way that no first-week-of-term email ever could.

Now, what to do this week.

If you have a question about the end of this term that the school hasn't answered, send it to me. I'm gathering questions from parents for a free online Q&A later this summer. Share yours here.

PS. If these letters land for you, find us between issues on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. We're @dearparentsandcarers in all three. That's where we share the things you need to know, that no one told you, you needed to know.