IT might be scary for some students to take the step up to secondary school, but making the process fun and laying early groundwork may help to ease the transition.
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This was true on Wednesday, when Holy Trinity’s year 6 students had a hand up from some secondary students at the school’s Trades Training Centre.
The activity was to introduce the younger students to some of the elective options they can choose when they enter year 7. Students were broken into groups for three activities.
They were taken through some naming games to name farm implements and items.
Cattle stood ready for some breed-identification guesswork and inside, a raucous game of farmyard bingo saw students identifying livestock breeds and winning small prizes if they were the first to shout out.
Teacher Kathy Townsend organised the older students to assist their younger peers, and felt the day went well, with everyone engaged in the project.
Emiline Watters in year 10 took the younger kids over to the cattle yards and helped them guess the cattle breeds.
She felt the chance for next year’s year 7 students to choose the ag elective would present benefits.
“Yes it does I think, because a lot of times with the ag students, they’re quite close. You get to go away, and you get more opportunities than you do in a lot of other classes, which is good,” she said.
Year 10 student Josh Brand was also helped with the younger students. He said he benefited from a similar day when he was in year 6.
“Just to get used to being in a mix with a whole heap of different people and move to different classes every 45 minutes,” he said.
Primary assistant principal Nick Baird felt the day offered year 6 students plenty of time to digest the next stage of their education.
“It’s an opportunity for them just to really see what it is like for the type of electives that are offered in secondary school,” Mr Baird said.
“So it’s just a wonderful day for them to really see what secondary school is about and get rid of the worry that they have about the transition.”