It's not time to leave your child completely on his own yet when it comes to school. The switch to middle school is a big step-often even bigger than going to high school.

Middle schools tend to be big-more than twice or even three times as big as the elementary schools that students are coming from. Kids feed in from sometimes as many as six or seven elementary schools. If you want to choose best international schools in Amsterdam for your kids then visit https://www.amityschool.nl/

To top that off, instead of moving through the day with the same set of kids, most middle school kids regroup every period. A student is lucky to be in class with someone he knows much less a friend.

The curriculum really does get harder.

The content standards for early adolescence make a jump in the amount of critical thinking and problem solving required. The pace is relentlessas the emphasis is on getting through the whole list of standards rather than mastering a few key ones.

At my school, when we looked at the 6th graders' marks, they were lower first trimester than second and lower second than third. Even the best students wobbled a bit while adjusting to the change in academic expectations.

Parents should know this and reassure their kids that they will figure out how to handle middle school work given time, but most schools don't give parents that information.

Middle School teachers

The biggest change, however, is the mentality of middle school teachers. Unlike elementary school teachers who see their primary goal as encouraging self-esteem and a love of learning, junior high teachers lean towards focusing on kids accepting that a lot of life is about jumping through hoops and doing things in a certain way.