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By: Audrey Clark 9/17/26
Have you ever wondered if students are really prepared for the jump from junior high to high school? Many students stress out and worry about whether they are really ready for high school. Are they going to have friends, can they keep their grades up, and how are they supposed to stay organized? These are some of the many questions you may be worried about. But could all of these things be solved if you were better prepared in junior high?
One of the biggest worries kids have is whether they are going to have friends. The National Library of Medicine states, “results revealed a decline in students’ grades and increases in depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness across the high school transition.” This shows how finding friends is super important in the transition to high school, and the effects of not having a strong social network of friends can affect students negatively in many different ways. The staff at EJHS have tried to create a general sense of belonging through different activities, and it has helped, but some students still feel excluded. Former students at EJHS have talked about how it is very important to find friends, and they are aiming to help the students who feel excluded feel included. This stance they are taking will not only give students a general sense of happiness, but also may help in other ways throughout their school life.
Students at the JEA convention in Nashville TN.
The next worry is whether students know how to study and are able to keep their grades up. A former EJHS student, Tate Robertson, says, “I think that the load of work that a Freshman in high school gets is nothing close to that of an 8th grader. In junior high, the only significant homework a student gets is in Math, while a high schooler can expect it from nearly every class period.” This highlights the worry that students aren’t being challenged enough in school or being prepared. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill put out an article explaining how to study. They explain how many people go into high schools/college with very bad study strategies, and it negatively affects them in their future. This is such a big worry for students at Edgewood Junior High, as the average GPA of 8th-grade students last year was also really high, indicating that they weren’t challenged enough for high school.
The final worry is how students can stay organized and set themselves up for success. Sophomore Josephine Buckley explains, “Organization is the most crucial step to success in high school. Staying on top of your assignments or having a schedule for when you can best complete them is one of the best things you can do for yourself to maintain your best.” Many students do not have this mentality, and it ends up leading them to piles of homework and missing assignments. In junior high, teachers try to give extra time to work for students or have a very low standard for how late students can turn in assignments. This ends up leading to the problem of a lack of knowing how to organize. Edutopia explains that students aren’t born knowing how to organize; it is a learned skill from past experiences that force them to learn how to organize their lives.
An organized EJHS locker.
All this said, our teachers and staff are doing an amazing job trying to develop the minds of the younger generation. As a way to improve our systems, we can better prepare students for high school. Students can help by promoting socialization, while the teachers try to help students learn how to study and stay organized.
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