The first six weeks of senior school are an unphotographed period. The prospectus does not describe them. The induction afternoon does not prepare for them. They are the weeks during which a child arrives at a new institution, decides - usually unconsciously - what kind of student she will be there, and is decided about, in the staffroom, in turn.
What follows is a short field guide, written for the household: the chief of staff, the household director, the parent who travels.
Week one - the watching week
The child is, in the first week, a researcher. She is reading the dining hall, the corridor, the back of the classroom. The household helps most by making the home very ordinary: school uniform laid out the night before, the same breakfast, the same drive, no large questions about the day.
Weeks two and three - the small failure
By the second or third week, almost every child has a small failure. A misjudged answer in class. A friendship that does not turn into the friendship she had hoped for. A first piece of work returned with comments she did not expect. The household’s job is to receive the failure without amplifying it. A long phone call to the head of year in week two will, in nearly every case, lengthen the recovery.
Most of the calls a school remembers from a household are the calls placed in the first month - and almost all of them are the calls the household, on reflection, wishes it had not made.
Week four - the academic shape appears
By week four, the academic year has a shape. The child knows which subjects will be hard, which will be easy, which teachers will be allies, which will be remote. This is the moment, if any, for a quiet conversation at home - not about results, about impressions. Where does she feel quickest? Where does she feel slow? The answers are, for the first time, reliable.
Weeks five and six - the small course-correction
If a tutor is to be engaged, this is the week. Not before. A tutor introduced in week one is a confession: this school is harder than we thought. A tutor introduced in week five is a quiet professional, brought in to help the child arrive properly. The distinction is, to the child, very large.
By the end of the sixth week the year is, in most respects, set. The household that has done little - has been ordinary, attentive, and slow to call - has done a great deal.