BACK TO SCHOOL GUIDE
The following include both excerpts taken from "Regroupement des associations de parents PANDA du Quebec", and other sources to help any student transition back into the routine of school more smoothly.
Transition to School
If needed because of your child's special needs, consider scheduling a meeting with your child’s new homeroom teacher for early to mid September. Arrive prepared for this meeting to be effective and time conscious. Here are some questions to ask yourself and discuss with your child BEFORE the appointment to help you make the most out of your meeting.
Look back at Last Year and Review:
How did the year go generally?
Was it a successful year, academically and socially?
What were your child’s successes – in your opinion, your child's opinion, and the school’s?
What were the highlights of the year for your child?
What seemed to decrease your child's stress level and make school more enjoyable?
What were the tools used or implemented that helped to increase your child's self-esteem?
Did your child have a mentor at school (someone they could go to for support and assistance)?
What were the stumbling blocks (if any) to your child being successful? Please be specific.
What were the issues reported by the school?
Review your child’s individualized educational plan, their special education designation (if applicable), report cards, and communications from school
Review areas that the school identifies as your child's strengths and weaknesses.
What was implemented as an accommodation or strategy in the classroom or school?
What were the strategies that were not implemented?
What accommodations or strategies worked and helped your child to be successful academically and socially?
Were there certain small strategies and/or accommodations that made a big difference for your child?
What strategies were not as effective?
Get to know your child's teacher/team
How knowledgeable are they about your child's diagnosis/challenge if applicable?
Allow your child's teacher/team to get to know them and not just their diagnosis.
Describe your child's strengths and the things that endear them to you.
Share your child's quirks, or anything that will assist the teacher in understanding them.
Discuss strategies the helped to increase your child's success in his/her academics.
Discuss strategies that helped to increase your child's self-esteem.
Work with your child’s teacher to set up strategies
Share your insights on what worked and did not work last year.
Review the existing IEP and/or classroom strategies being used.
What can and should be implemented?
Decide on the first goals of the year, or temporary goals until the IEP meeting.
Set up a system of frequent communication with the teacher
*********************************************
An aside:
Please remember that your child's teachers know your son or daughter as they are in a classroom environment. Often our children show different sides of themselves depending upon the situation.
**********************************************
Life at Home
Organizing Before- and After School Routines
This is the time to start fresh and put all those organizational strategies that you read about in place.
Brainstorm strategies with your child and other family members to assist with last year’s challenges. Including the entire family in the discussion will make them more cooperative when it comes time to implement the strategies. Try and make the plan a “win” for everyone.
Negotiate appropriate morning and evening routines perhaps with the agreement that 15 minutes will be added or subtracted from bedtime and/or wake time if the kids have difficulty getting out the door or into bed on time.
Start to adjust the sleep schedule so wake and sleep times are closer to school times.
Decide on where and when homework will be done.
Declutter and organize their homework workspace as much as possible, and buy the necessary tools to assist
with this.
Think about how you are going to ensure that homework and assignments get home and back to school. Use an agenda or an
electronic calendar.
Have a designated place for backpacks and other things that need to go back and forth to school, and ensure that
the backpack is packed with all necessities and in place the night before.
Perhaps set a time to get clothes laid out the night before.
Help your child organize school supplies. Be sure to purchase all supplies listed to ensure that your child is properly equipped and can thus meet
the classroom expectations.
Prepare a family calendar to help keep everyone on time and organized. This serves as an excellent example to your child on how you work
to keep organized as well.
Use posters or post-it notes with lists of reminders or routines (pictures can be used for younger children) posted in the
appropriate place, such as the bedroom door, bathroom mirror, at the front door, or on the kitchen fridge, to catch the
child's eye.
Discuss and re-evaluate extracurricular activities
How many activities can the family realistically handle?
What would these activities require in terms of time commitment, driving and costs?
What activities would be the most beneficial for your child – i.e. does the child need to burn energy in a highly active sport?
Does your child do better at individual or team sports?
Does your child have a specific talent that would benefit his/her self-esteem to nurture?
The following include both excerpts taken from "Regroupement des associations de parents PANDA du Quebec", and other sources to help any student transition back into the routine of school more smoothly.
Transition to School
If needed because of your child's special needs, consider scheduling a meeting with your child’s new homeroom teacher for early to mid September. Arrive prepared for this meeting to be effective and time conscious. Here are some questions to ask yourself and discuss with your child BEFORE the appointment to help you make the most out of your meeting.
Look back at Last Year and Review:
How did the year go generally?
Was it a successful year, academically and socially?
What were your child’s successes – in your opinion, your child's opinion, and the school’s?
What were the highlights of the year for your child?
What seemed to decrease your child's stress level and make school more enjoyable?
What were the tools used or implemented that helped to increase your child's self-esteem?
Did your child have a mentor at school (someone they could go to for support and assistance)?
What were the stumbling blocks (if any) to your child being successful? Please be specific.
What were the issues reported by the school?
Review your child’s individualized educational plan, their special education designation (if applicable), report cards, and communications from school
Review areas that the school identifies as your child's strengths and weaknesses.
What was implemented as an accommodation or strategy in the classroom or school?
What were the strategies that were not implemented?
What accommodations or strategies worked and helped your child to be successful academically and socially?
Were there certain small strategies and/or accommodations that made a big difference for your child?
What strategies were not as effective?
Get to know your child's teacher/team
How knowledgeable are they about your child's diagnosis/challenge if applicable?
Allow your child's teacher/team to get to know them and not just their diagnosis.
Describe your child's strengths and the things that endear them to you.
Share your child's quirks, or anything that will assist the teacher in understanding them.
Discuss strategies the helped to increase your child's success in his/her academics.
Discuss strategies that helped to increase your child's self-esteem.
Work with your child’s teacher to set up strategies
Share your insights on what worked and did not work last year.
Review the existing IEP and/or classroom strategies being used.
What can and should be implemented?
Decide on the first goals of the year, or temporary goals until the IEP meeting.
Set up a system of frequent communication with the teacher
*********************************************
An aside:
Please remember that your child's teachers know your son or daughter as they are in a classroom environment. Often our children show different sides of themselves depending upon the situation.
**********************************************
Life at Home
Organizing Before- and After School Routines
This is the time to start fresh and put all those organizational strategies that you read about in place.
Brainstorm strategies with your child and other family members to assist with last year’s challenges. Including the entire family in the discussion will make them more cooperative when it comes time to implement the strategies. Try and make the plan a “win” for everyone.
Negotiate appropriate morning and evening routines perhaps with the agreement that 15 minutes will be added or subtracted from bedtime and/or wake time if the kids have difficulty getting out the door or into bed on time.
Start to adjust the sleep schedule so wake and sleep times are closer to school times.
Decide on where and when homework will be done.
Declutter and organize their homework workspace as much as possible, and buy the necessary tools to assist
with this.
Think about how you are going to ensure that homework and assignments get home and back to school. Use an agenda or an
electronic calendar.
Have a designated place for backpacks and other things that need to go back and forth to school, and ensure that
the backpack is packed with all necessities and in place the night before.
Perhaps set a time to get clothes laid out the night before.
Help your child organize school supplies. Be sure to purchase all supplies listed to ensure that your child is properly equipped and can thus meet
the classroom expectations.
Prepare a family calendar to help keep everyone on time and organized. This serves as an excellent example to your child on how you work
to keep organized as well.
Use posters or post-it notes with lists of reminders or routines (pictures can be used for younger children) posted in the
appropriate place, such as the bedroom door, bathroom mirror, at the front door, or on the kitchen fridge, to catch the
child's eye.
Discuss and re-evaluate extracurricular activities
How many activities can the family realistically handle?
What would these activities require in terms of time commitment, driving and costs?
What activities would be the most beneficial for your child – i.e. does the child need to burn energy in a highly active sport?
Does your child do better at individual or team sports?
Does your child have a specific talent that would benefit his/her self-esteem to nurture?