If your child needs to change to another school because of your in-house transfer or moving to another city, there are necessary procedures you need to go through before and after moving.
You need to go to a school and a municipal office to submit necessary documents after preparing these. In this article, I want to explain what documents to prepare and submit as easily as you can understand.
I hope this article will help your child’s school transfer done smoothly.
Contents
- 1 If your child transfers to public elementary school located in the same municipality
- 2 If your child transfers to a public school located in another municipality
- 3 If your child transfers to a private elementary school
- 4 Make every preparations with time to spare
- 5 Other preparations
- 6 When is the best timing of school transfer
If your child transfers to public elementary school located in the same municipality
The following is the necessary documents you need to prepare
- Student certificate (Zaigaku Shoumeisho: “在学証明書”)
- Textbook allowance certificate (Kyoukasho Kyufu Shoumeisho: “教科書給付気証明書”)
- School transfer notification (Tennyugaku Tsuchisho: “転入学通知書”)
Student certificate (Zaigaku Shoumeisho: “在学証明書”) and Textbook allowance certificate (Kyoukasho, Kyufu, Shoumeisho: “教科書給付気証明書”) are issued by the present school before moving.
Your action plan for school transfer procedure
If deciding which school your child transfers to, you should proceed with the procedures by the following order.
| Things you should do at the present school |
|
|---|---|
| Things you should at a municipal office |
|
| Things you should do at a new school |
|
If your child transfers to a public school located in another municipality
The following is the necessary documents you need
- Student certificate (Zaigaku Shoumeisho: “在学証明書”)
- Textbook allowance certificate (Kyoukasho Kyufu Shoumeisho: “教科書給付気証明書”)
- School transfer notification (Tennyugaku Tsuchisho: “転入学通知書”)
- New resident certificate
Your action plan for school transfer procedure
| Things you should do at the present school |
|
|---|---|
| Things you should do at a municipal office |
|
| Things you do at a new school |
|
If your child transfers to a private elementary school
If you let your child transfer to a private elementary school, you need directly go through the admission procedure at a private elementary school. Depending on the school, your child may be required to take a transfer admission test. It is not very easy for anybody to enter the school.
Necessary documents you need to prepare are different depending on the school your child transfer to. You just confirm what documents need to prepare and what kind of application forms you need to receive in advance. However, generally, things you need to prepare for in advance is written in the admission guide published by a private school.
Your action plan for a private school transfer procedure
| What you should do at a school | Make an inqurity about admission condisions and a transfer admission test. If you need school inspection, you should ask it, too. |
|---|---|
| You child take an admission test and have an interview (your child is allowed to enter if passing these.) | |
| After passing a transfer admission test and interview screening, notify the present elementary school that your child will transfer to a private elementary school. Depending on the school, you are requried to submit a school transfer notification. | |
| Confirm and receive necessary application forms you have to fill in until your child enter. | |
| Submit necessary documents (required certificates and filled application forms) to the school |
Whether your child can enter a private school all depends on the result of the transfer test and interview, and above all, if there is a vacancy. Therefore, you need to make a careful preliminary investigation and strategy to make your child transfer to a private school.
Moreover, you should realize your child may face disparity in the potential ability with other students after transferring because a private elementary school’s education curriculum is based on the unique education method.
Make every preparations with time to spare
You have to act with the premise that any troubles and problems occur during your preparation. For example, if the private school is in a busy season of the term-end exam or some school events, the private school may be late for giving you admission application forms.
Even if you haven’t decided where to live yet, at the time you decide to move or let your child transfer a private school, you start proceeding with the school admission procedure.
Likewise, you just avoid the timing to move right before your child’s entrance ceremony. Especially, February or March, the previous month of school starting day, is the busy season of moving. In this season, it is very difficult to arrange movers to carry your stuff on your desired date. You should book a mover a couple of months before the busy season with time to spare.
Other preparations
Document preparation is only a part of all the preparations you need to make. You have to buy necessary stuff such as school things, uniform, bag, textbook. You may feel more rushed before your child is admitted than after your child is admitted.
Prepare school things
In a school admission guide, you receive after your child is admitted, there are lists of things you prepare before school entrance ceremony. You should check the lists if you should buy designated school things or it is possible to make do with things you already possess.
A shop selling designated school things is generally placed around a school your child goes to. If you check where it is on google map or something, you can smoothly buy school things after you move.
Regarding the market price of school things, I wrote the price lists of school things in the following article.
How to let your child enter Japanese public school (elementary school and junior high school)
Make a courtesy visit to a leaving school
When your child leaves a school, don’t forget to say “Thank you”, and “Good Bye”, to a homeroom teacher, the principal, and other teachers who take care of your child’s study.
Sometimes, you make a courtesy visit with a simple gift to express your feeling of gratitude to teachers in the leaving school. You don’t have to buy a very expensive one but buy simple sweets that teachers can share each other.
When you visit, you should choose the time when teachers you’re going to greet is not really busy.
Make a courtesy visit to a new school
Administratively, your child admission will be notified to a school. However, it is important to go to a school to notify your child for school entrance and great teachers. You should at least greet a homeroom teacher who is in charge of a class your child may belong to, and the principal. You should take your child with you to a new school by all means.
Check the entrance timing
If your child’s school transfer timing is just around the start of a new semester, your child can smoothly get used to a new school life. However, if your child’s school transfer timing is halfway through the semester, your child may feel stressed about the situation that your child gets a late start in a class and feel difficult to keep up with.
When is the best timing of school transfer
When to let your child transfer to a new school has arguments for and against because the moving reason is generally by father’s in-house transfer. Not being able to choose the season of child’s school transfer is probably the real intention that most of the households have.
However, it is a parent’s kindness to have a consideration to adjust the schedule of a child’s school transfer somewhat. You take care of not just your work but child’s situation.
First and foremost, finish any municipal procedures after you move
First of all, you have to complete the necessary municipal procedures as quickly as possible. If you move a new place within the area where the same municipality takes charges of, you can receive a school transfer notification on the spot but if you move to another municipality, you have to submit a move-out notification to the former municipality and submit a move-in notification to the new municipality.
Moreover, a move-out notification needs to be submitted 14 days before you leave the city and a move-in notification needs to be submitted within 14 days before the day you move in. After submitting a move-in notification to the new municipality, you are able to receive a school transfer notification.
After moving, if you don’t go through such municipal procedures as quickly as possible, your child ends up having a blank period that your child can’t go to a school. You must prioritize completing municipal procedures over anything.
The best timing of school transfer for a child
The best season for children to transfer to a new school is in April that the first semester in any grades starts in Japan. In addition, all the class members are shuffled and for some class members, they start making friends from scratch in the class. A transfer student can easily get used to the class in the sense that some class members newly make friends there.
The best timing of child’s school transfer for parents
The best season for parents to let child transfer to a new school is when the first semester starts. If there is a relationship among students, there is also a relationship with the parents. In the season of a new semester, a board member of PTA is not selected out of parents of students yet. This timing is good enough to start getting along with other parents.