Pete Brindley explores ways for parents to build confidence in navigating school transitions for their child, in particular for children who have experienced past trauma.
School transitions: School endings and perhaps even more so, beginnings, stir up a deep sense of foreboding and unpredictability, particularly for those children and young people who have experienced trauma in their lives. Two of my own children, both adopted, 15 and 18, recall some of those questions and deep-seated worries as if they were yesterday…
“Will I know anybody at all?”
“Will I make any friends?”
“If I get lost, will I ever be found?” My daughter asked this as she started Secondary School, with some real frustration and significance for her particular journey, that they weren’t even provided with a map.
When we are lost, as in when out walking or driving, we may well seek a map or refer to the satnav for help. When our child is emotionally lost, they and us as their parents need help from key people, quickly in order to avoid deeper sinking.
Who Can I Talk With In School And What Should I Share?
Trust, as we know, is built up over time. Trust develops once you’ve been able to connect with key people so this will be a particular challenge for those starting a new school. Staff members will know their school far better than you. However, it’s you that knows your child far better than they do.
You are the one that will be your child’s biggest advocate (with the help of trusted others) during their school years. You are aware and understand and their unique story.
Suggestions on WHO to approach in school:
- Class Teacher
- Class Teaching Assistant/Learning Mentor (there may be one attached full-time to your child’s class or shared across a year group.
- SENDCo/Inclusion Lead – This member of staff should have some strategic overview and be able to offer advice- signposting to other relevant contact. They may well have some ideas about how Government SEND reforms (2026) may impact/start to inform planning for pupils who are vulnerable in school.
- Looked After/Previously Looked after children (LAC/PLAC) Teacher. This is often the SENDCo/Inclusion Lead but not necessarily.
Making contact with the right person is often a frustrating (and long lasting) challenge for parents and carers. You may need to speak with all of the above. You may need to do so repeatedly. It may be the headteacher that is the most help in all this.
Some of the information that you may think is important to share, for example, aspects of your child’s life story that may help key adults to understand the challenges lying ahead, are highly sensitive and rightly confidential. Think before sharing. Take advice from a social worker or other agency that is supporting you as appropriate.
This blog, written by a parent, Paula Gilhholy, from Adoption UK, is about her daughter’s first term at secondary school. She shares many of the similar fears that I had with my children and I started searching for that “map” of what lay ahead. In Paula’s case, the (right) school staff listened and responded positively to the concerns shared. The small adjustments made within the early days and weeks of the new school experience made a huge and positive difference.
Paula’s experience was not without its challenges and “bumps along the way.” My own family’s has been the same. So much of the experience for many youngsters will be based around the different, key adults they come across each year. Some they will connect, trust, feel safe and flourish with more far than the others.
Below are some ideas and links that may be of some help in these dilemmas.
Navigating school transitions as a parent
Connect with others.
If you know of any, connect up with other parents/carers that you believe may be in similar situations to yourself
Where possible, talk with those who know the new class or school already.
They may be able to suggest the best staff connectors.
Go into the school.
If you are able, get into the school during the first week or two. Make an excuse to get in there. Take some of the below information with you and suggest that they might be useful to those key people in school. Ask to speak with the Class Teacher or other member of the Class Team at a time mutually convenient.
Take a look at suggestions and ideas in the articles below.
Think again along the lines of what it is most important (vital) for my child’s teacher to know from Day 1? (If key people are NOT aware of how and WHY my child is likely to react in different ways to certain situations, issues are likely to arise.)
Signpost information for teachers.
Not all teachers will have experience with children who are adopted or fostered. This blog has a helpful list of thought provoking ideas for teachers and other adults in school working particularly with Adopted/Looked After Children to bear in mind.
Access Pupil Premium.
With Pupil Premium, your school can get additional funds for your child and it may help with training or resources.
Look at the Government’s White Paper re. Reforms in education, particularly that of children and young people with SEND. (February 2026.)
Look in on forums that comment. Debate on the reforms (there are many on Facebook). Ask questions like these:
- How do/will these new ideas show up in my child’s school?
- What is the Headteacher’s interpretation and plan?
- How will new thinking impact, if at all, on my son’s/daughter’s ability to “achieve and thrive?”
Rebecca Brooks, Adoption UK’s education advisor, wrote a book called The Trauma And Attachment Aware Classroom. Rebecca describes this book as being one she wishes she had read when she was teaching in school. As a teacher myself, I would thoroughly recommend this read. You might pick one up and if you think it will help, take it into school, or supply educators with sections of it. It might just make the difference.
Adoptive Dad Pete Brindley is a former teacher, School Senior Leader and Group Theraplay Facilitator at Beacon Family Services and is now an associate member of the team. As a foundational Group Theraplay® Practitioner, Pete has led many Theraplay® groups supporting, engaging and challenging children and parents using play. Over the decades, Pete’s focus has been on supporting pupils who are experiencing significant traumas in their lives and whose emotional and social behaviours are impacted as a result. He has worked closely with teaching colleagues, outside agencies and, most importantly, the parents/carers of such vulnerable young people in order to help deal with some of the challenges met.
Further support
If you are a teacher or a support worker in a school and have recognised challenges regarding school transitions in your own school’s community, you can visit our Support for Schools hub or contact us for more information about our support to schools.
For more information for parents about how Theraplay® Groups could help you and your child OR/AND your child’s school, contact us at Beacon Family Services.
To learn more about Beacon Family Services’ work with families, visit our Families hub or sign up to our mailing list.