Year 7 starts in Term 4. Here's the term-by-term plan.
Free tool · Year 6 to 7 transition planner
Year 7 starts in Term 4. Here's the term-by-term plan.
For autistic and neurodivergent kids, the move to secondary school goes best when the groundwork is done the year before. This is the checklist we use in LiftOff, laid out by term, with space for your own notes. Tick things off, add your notes, download it, and take it to the school.
Year 6 to 7 transition planner · free tool at ucsol.com.au/year-7-planner · Unified Care Solutions
Why Term 4
The families who find February easiest start now.
Orientation day is one visit. The things that make Year 7 work, knowing the building, knowing one person, having the morning routine already running, take a term to set up. What the research says, and why.
Term 4, Year 6
October to December. The main work happens here.
Confirm the school and the enrolment is complete.Ask who the Year 7 coordinator and the wellbeing contact are, by name.
Request a transition meeting with the secondary school before the end of term.Bring the current school's support plan, any reports, and your one-page summary. Ask what adjustments will be in place from day one, not "once we get to know them".
Ask for extra visits beyond orientation day.Quiet times. Walk the route between classes. Find the toilets, the library, the quiet space. Photograph them for home.
Find one familiar face.Who else from primary school is going? Who do they already know through sport, family, gaming? One person is enough.
Ask how the first week is structured for Year 7s, and get it in writing.Lockers, timetables, bells, canteen, uniform rules. The unwritten rules are the ones that cause trouble.
If NDIS funded, raise transition support with your coordinator now.Life transition planning may be fundable under Capacity Building if it links to plan goals. Check before anything starts.
Summer holidays
Low pressure. Rehearse, don't drill.
Practise the route to school at the time of day it will happen.Bus, bike or car. Once in the first week of January, once in the last.
Try the uniform, the bag, the lock on the locker.Sensory problems with uniforms are a January job, not a February one.
Shift the sleep and morning routine back two weeks before term.
Make one contact with the familiar face.A message, a game online, a visit. So day one isn't the first conversation.
Agree the plan for a hard day.Who they can go to at school, what they can say, what happens if they need to come home. Write it on a card for the bag.
Term 1, Year 7
February to April. Watch, adjust, don't wait.
Week 2: check in with the Year 7 coordinator, not the end of term.Are the adjustments in place? Who have they sat with at lunch?
Watch the after-school hours.Masking all day comes out at home. A rough 4pm is information, not a problem with you.
Pick one club, team or lunchtime group by week 4, and go with them to the first one if that's what it takes.
If attendance starts to slip, act in the first fortnight.Reluctance that becomes school can't is far easier to turn around early. Tell the school and your GP.
Book the end-of-term review with the school before you need it.
The PDF is built on your device from the whole list, with your ticks and notes. Nothing is sent anywhere, and it disappears when you close the page, so download before you leave.
If the download button doesn't work in your browser, use Print (Ctrl+P, or Share then Print on a phone) and choose Save as PDF.
If the list feels like too much to carry alone
LiftOff is how we handle the big transitions.
Planning the move with the school, the family and the young person, the year before it arrives. Online anywhere in Australia, in person around Ballarat. About life transition planning.