A Guide to Secondary School

As a new term comes anxiety will be rising, for those that are moving up from primary to secondary school this can be even more than normal. Weather you are heading back to the same school into a new year or moving up to a new school I hope that I am able to share a few thoughts that may help make that transition into the new school year. 

I was finished secondary school 6 years ago in 2015, when I think about it, it feels like yesterday but actually quite a lot has happened since then. However the one thing that I so clearly remember and don't think I will ever forget is that feeling the day before you go back. Fear absolutely consumes you, the next day feels simply impossible. Despite this every year it happens at it is okay. 

In this post I want to take you though a school day, explaining some of the really tricky parts for me and some of the strategies I learnt/ was taught to make the day more manageable. Each secondary school has a slightly different routine and COVID times I am sure will have changed things a little bit but hopefully my experience is still relevant. 

The first thing that I want to talk about (because it doesn’t fit in anywhere else!) is what I think of helpfully as the triangle of support. This includes your parents/ career, a member of staff from school (maybe the SENCo, your tutor or head of year, and most importantly you. Having a link in school is really helpful for both you and your parents. Someone you feel safe going to when you are struggling or who your parents can send an email to on your behalf. This can be a really helpful way to keep clear communication between home and school without piling the pressure on you.

So starting with the night before. For me starting to prepare for the day started the night before. This helped me to prepare and process things more, making it seem more manageable. It can really help to have your lunch made (if you're taking a packed lunch), having your bag packed and your uniform laid out. At the start of a new term when you might have new uniform it is also really worth trying it on the night before, make sure there are no itchy labels that need cutting out. It might not feel quite like the clothes you've been wearing all simmer so allow yourself a bit o time to get use to the feeling of wearing a shirt or tights etc. It can also help to make a to do list for the morning so you don't have to worry about missing something in a state of panic. 

So you wake up and its the big day. Give yourself time, its okay to feel what ever you are feeling, excited, scared or somewhere in between. Make sure you have breakfast, even if you don't feel you can manage it. Secondary school break times are a bit later than in primary school. If you are anything like me, I don't cope so well when I am hungry so take steps to reduce any additional challenges.

Give yourself plenty of time to get to school, this might be a journey you have practiced a bit over the summer or it might be that someone is going to drop you off for the first few days. Getting to school for me used to involve going on the school bus. This was something that I continued to struggle with throughout. It was loud and the smell of teenage boys using quite a lot of deoderate etc was overwhelming. I found my way to cope with this was to sit at the front of the bus. The noise tended to be worse at the back of the bus there for the front felt safer. The fresh air each time we stopped and the door opened to collect more students was also quite nice. I also use to listen to audiobooks. I found this much easier to get lost in than music.

As soon as I got to school I would get off the bus and had a pass to get inside to go to the student support base. Here I would have a bit of quite time before the day started. This was really helpful for me as it meant that I didn't have to be on the playground that would get very crowded and overwhelming. 

When it comes to lessons naturally you will enjoy some and others not so. Something that can really help is making this visual. For example using a red and green pencil to colour in lessons that you really enjoy or maybe don’t enjoy so much. This can help to break up what may otherwise seem quite an overwhelming list of lessons.

I remember another things in lessons that I really struggled with was that sense of being ‘stuck’. A couple of things that can really help with this that I found work well were first off all having it agreed and shared with staff where in the classroom you may feel safest. This may be by the door so you can easily see the exit. It can also be helpful to see if there is an option for an exit or help card. This is something that I had in secondary school that when showed to any member of staff meant I could leave the lesson anywhere from a few minute to the whole lesson. When I used my exit card I would go to the student support base and have some time out. This really helped me. In knowing there was a way out it actually meant I stayed in lessons more.

Break time/ lunch time were times that I found really tricky to manage at school. It was unstructured, busy and loud. This would make me feel quite anxious and leave me feel exhausted. It can be helpful to make a bit of structure. Make a mental tick list of things you need to get done for example making sure you have eaten your lunch and been to the toilet. A lot of schools will have a quite space or homework club that you can go to over lunch. This may be worth thinking about. It can mean that you don’t have to worry about being in a busy canteen or playground. It can also be a chance to get some homework done, less to do at home!

Another aspect of free time at school is friendship. This is something I found really hard throughout secondary school, if I am honest I can’t say I am still in touch with anyone I went to school with and that to me is completely okay. Don’t pile pressure on yourself to make lifelong friends. Of course it is nice and really helpful to have peers that will support you and to also give you that sense that you fit in but looking back if I could tell my 11 year old self anything it would be to not worry about deep friendships at school. I have got some amazing friends that I met outside of school, so just because you don’t make them at school doesn’t mean they don’t exist. If friendship is something that you struggle with I have written a whole separate post on that covers this in more detail, I’ll put the link to that post at the end of this one!

So you have made it to the end of the day, first of all well done!! This is a massive achievement, be kind to yourself you are going to be exhausted, the amount of sensory and social processing you have been doing on top of learning your way around a new school and then all the things you are learning in lessons to, it makes my brain hurt just thinking back to all of that!

When you get home it is really important to allow yourself time to rest and reprocess. This will look different for everyone. For me this looked like a dog walk, others it might be watching TV or reading a book. What ever you enjoy. It can help to be left alone at this time too, you might feel a bit peopled out.

Once you have had some down time you might have some homework to do. Try and make this as structured as you can. Set a timer for half an hour or an hour. Try and work really hard during that time and after that stop. If this is starting to feel a bit overwhelming this might be something that you or your parents could talk to someone at school about. Maybe getting a bit of an extension or changing the expectations of the homework.

And here we are having done the full loop, back to where we started. Preparing for the next day. In secondary school you will be expected to manage more of your own belongings, you might be expected to take home your books and textbooks. This then also means that you will need to remember to bring the right books in with you. This is something that it can be really helpful to do the night before when you are getting ready for school. Have somewhere safe at home to keep your books. If remembering to take the right books is something that is tricky for you. This might be something that again is worth speaking to a teacher at school about. Is there somewhere safe you can leave your books, your tutor base or with each teacher.

The final part of the day is a good bedtime routine, making sure you allow yourself plenty of time to wind down before bed, this might mean a bit of TV time or a walk or a bit more reading. Anything that helps your brain to switch off. Then lights off an a good nights sleep, ready for tomorrow.

However, the first few days or weeks go for you please know that you are so much more than the school system may make you feel. As much as we try the school system is designed in a way that makes it really tricky for autistic individuals. Be kind to yourself, be honest with yourself (and others), hang in there and focus on the positives, however small they might be.

Blog Post 8: https://guidetogrowingupautistic.blogspot.com/2021/07/friendship.html