Transition from Primary to Secondary School - A Personal Account

Something strange happened in the transition from primary to secondary school, and to this day I am not really able to make sense of it. I can point to several factors, but they do not coalesce into a package that enables me fully to explain the strangeness. It goes like this. In primary school, I was a popular kid. I went to a small, Jewish school, where all the parents knew each other, and the teachers, from the community. My classmates were all roughly from the same or similar socio-economic backgrounds. I was cheeky and slightly rebellious. I was a bit of a joker. I was academically able, but constantly being told that I ‘should do better’. I loved writing stories and drawing comics; I hated maths and science. Perhaps most importantly as I reached Upper KS2, I was good at football. Football was what we played every free moment we got. And I was much in demand as a goalkeeper. I was frequently picked first or second when captains chose their teams at playtime. I never had to work hard to make friends in primary school – they basically fell into my lap. 

Then I went to secondary school. Big School. None of my primary school friends went to the same Big School as me, so I had to start from scratch. Big School was different, in the sense that there were many more people, and the school was in central London so I was taking the Tube from a young age. You couldn’t just casually go back to a friend’s house after school. And my parents knew none of the other parents. I had to make friends on my own now; I couldn’t simply rely on being part of a community. 

All of this helps elucidate why things were different for me now. But the differences between the environments should not be overstated. My parents had sent me to an academically selective, private school. The students were spread over a large geographical distance, but mostly their parents were, well, wealthy enough to send the kids to that school, although it was a popular pastime for pupils to pretend to be poorer than they were, to appear as though they were ‘from the streets’. Pretty laughable really. There were indeed students from many ethnic and religious backgrounds, but I was very far from alone as a Jew – many Jewish students went to that school. And football was still an important activity during break and lunch. 

So what changed? I’m not really sure. But I found it really, really hard to make friends. All my friends from primary school had now made new friends, yet I hadn’t moved on. I was still calling them up asking to make arrangements. I didn’t have many, or any, new friends. I knuckled down to work. My behaviour became what grown ups would call ‘better’. I didn’t get in trouble with teachers, as I had in primary school. I was no longer particularly cheeky or rebellious. I still enjoyed writing, but there was a spark that had now gone. I didn’t know why, and I still don’t. 

In my early years at Big School, I was pretty unpopular. I remember in Year 7, when some classmates compiled a list, from first to last, of the most popular kids in class. I think I came third from bottom. I had (and have) no idea why. I was a bit of a muppet perhaps – who isn’t, at that age? – but I don’t think I had ever gone out of my way to alienate anyone. I was hurt and bewildered, and still am a little bit, when I think about it. Even now, I do not know how I went from the popular goalie in primary school, to the loner I was now. I have mentioned some of the factors that differentiated primary from secondary school, but none of them adequately explain how different things had become for me.

Take football. By the time I reached secondary school, I had become more of a left winger than a goalkeeper. I did eventually end up playing a few matches in goal for the school B team, but when I arrived in Year 7 I was pretty decent on the wing. I was left-footed, and fast. But I couldn’t get anywhere near any of the teams, not even the C team. I just wasn’t noticed by any of the PE teachers (who, incidentally, were macho bullies). I believe that, had I been noticed and given a part to play in any of the school teams, things may have turned out quite differently for me. I may not have given up entirely on playing football by the time I reached 15. I may even have become one of the ‘popular’ kids, who, as in primary school, all seemed to be footballers. If I had my time again, I would have knocked on the PE teachers’ door, and asked straight out to be given a chance. But those teachers weren’t very nice people, and I wasn’t anywhere near confident enough to do that. To this day, it is one of my biggest regrets.

As I moved up through Big School, things did change. By the time I got to my GCSEs, I had developed a close circle of three or four friends, but I never really felt truly able to be myself around them. Our friendship seemed largely based on our consumption of illicit substances (and punk music, which I still enjoy), and they ended up dropping out of school. They were what adults would call ‘the wrong crowd’, and I’ve completely lost touch with all of them. I truly wish them well – Joel and Will, if you’re reading this, send me an email, I’d love to hear from you. One good thing to have emerged from that episode is that I recognised quite early on that certain substances were anthithetical to my well-being, and by the time I reached my later teens, when many others only just start to experiment, I had left the green stuff well behind, and haven’t gone near it since.

Sixth Form was an odd and paradoxical time. I had joined a punk band, written several songs with them, played a few gigs, and had a beautiful girlfriend. It has to be said, in my teens I was popular with girls. I made the most out of this, and became quite precocious in that respect. In my adult life I did go on to have a decade of unenforced celibacy (at the risk of going into too much detail, this sadly included all romantic contact, not just sex), but that is a completely different story. This one is about my adolescence, where I did OK with the chicks. However, Sixth Form was also a time of intense loneliness. I had an undiagnosed mental health condition, which at the time made me feel I was going crazy. I dumped the girlfriend because I thought I was insane. I spent many lunchtimes alone in the library. I got really, really into the poetry of Philip Larkin. I did well in my exams and got into a good uni. But my mental health deteriorated and I had an unplanned gap year. Again, this is a whole other story.

Before I stop writing, there are two more things I’d like to mention, one good, and the other very bad. The good thing was Adam. We didn’t go to the same primary school, but he was a kid who lived on my street, and we went to the same Big School together from Day One. We got the train up every day, and got to know each other very well. In the early years of Big School, I would say we were friendly, but he also kind of had his own group of friends which I wasn’t really a part of. As we went through GCSEs and Sixth Form, we became very tight, like brothers. We were bandmates. Playing punk songs onstage with Adam is maybe the closest I have ever had to a spiritual moment. I wanted this to be my future, but it never went beyond a couple of gigs. Another one of my regrets. I sometimes think I should try to get back into the whole music thing, but it wouldn’t be the same without Adam. Incidentally, our band was called Communication Problem, and I think we were genuinely very good. You can listen to a song I wrote here. So Adam was something good to have emerged from Big School. We see each other much less now, but I still consider him my best friend, and he was Best Man at my wedding in 2018. I should also give a shout-out to Dan, who I became close with in Sixth Form, and still consider to be a very good friend. 

The Bad Thing is something I have explored a lot in therapy, but I have never written about. Here goes. At the end of Year 7 I got massively into table tennis. I played in tournaments and trained at a local club. I was a bit obsessive, and ended up developing crippling performance anxiety which made me quit the game (another regret). This was just before I discovered girls. Anyway, one day, toward the beginning of Year 8, myself and a fellow enthusiast – Will, whom I mentioned earlier – decided to stay behind after school and make use of one of the free tables. We spent an hour playing together, and I remember being on cracking form. These were the days before mobile phones, so I couldn’t tell my parents that I’d be late home. But I thought it wouldn’t matter; it would only be about an hour. I thought wrong. It did matter. When I opened the door I arrived to witness my mum having a full-blown panic attack. Crying, screaming, hyperventilating, the lot. And all because I was an hour late home from school. I went up to my room, and something deep down within me knew that I must never, ever do that to my mum again. Unconsciously, I think this was the reason I never really stayed out late partying, or went travelling, or hitch-hiked, or saw the world, or went to university outside of my hometown. I think this is one of the reasons I may have developed such bad anxiety, which, for all its unpleasantness, gives one the illusion of safety. I think, although I cannot prove, that this one incident is at the root of a lot of my mental health issues. As Larkin said, they F you up, your mum and dad…

So there we go. This has been my account of my transition to, and through, Big School. Maybe some of my ex-schoolmates are reading this, and have wildly different memories. For example, I remember the environment as being intensely homophobic, but a schoolmate who is now gay is adamant that this wasn’t the case. Anyway, I hope some readers find this all interesting. What I have described is some of the stuff that helped shape the writer, and the person, that I am now. Sending you all peace and love.