The start of a new experience is often filled with a mix of excitement and trepidation and, for Year 7 students, that move into a Secondary School setting can be a pivotal moment in their journey through life. As such, this year, we created Thrive Week as an opportunity for students to spend more time settling in and learning core skills that will help them flourish over the coming years.
We split the week into five key themes as follows:
Support
Monday was a day dedicated to students understanding the levels of support available at our Secondary Campus. They spent the morning with their tutor team, building connections with their new peers and their tutor and co-tutor. The afternoon started with an opportunity to explore the school and meet a variety of different people who will be able to help them over the year. This included our nurse and counselling team, uniform and lost property support, our library, and even our Higher Education team. Finally, they got an opportunity to spend some time in different spaces around school that they can use during breaks and lunches - some played board games in our Pastoral Area, or read quietly in the library, while others chose to engage in sporting activities.
Learning and Innovation
On Tuesday, students focused on the skills that will help to ensure they are successful learners. Of course, these were not new, but the day was designed to ensure they reflected on the areas they feel they currently demonstrate and those they can continue to work on, as well as stressing the importance of our education being a journey. Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication were the key areas of focus and each was addressed through different warm up tasks and an exploration of students’ experiences. The day culminated in groups showcasing their learning and skill development in so many different ways: videos, visuals, role play, tableaux, raps, images, sculpture - this list goes on…
Opportunities
Wednesday was a day filled with exploration, where our Year 7s got to sample many of the opportunities available for them outside of the classroom. Our Enrichment Leader, David Morris led the first session. Here, students got to explore how to make thoughtful choices for the Exploration Pathway Activities, and then children worked in groups to create a sample Year 7 Trip. Our Head Students and Senior Prefects led the next session, guiding students through a series of activities designed to help them develop their leadership skills. Finally, our House Leader, Fiona Ciccarello, and our House Senior Prefects, created a mini House Day for our Year 7s to trial activities, and to start to understand what it means to be part of a House community at our Secondary Campus.
Digital Wellbeing
Moving into the latter part of the week, Thursday focused around the digital world. Students learned about our expectations at Secondary for using their devices but also started to consider healthy choices within this area. Often, the move to secondary comes with more freedom in many ways, including online, and the plan for today was to ensure they are already thinking about these key ideas before they get caught up in all the online wonders that can be all too tempting.
Thursday was an extra special day as we also invited our Year 7 parents to join us for the afternoon. Following an information session, parents joined the students to view creations they had made, and to engage in shared discussions around key questions about navigating device use. At the end of the school day, parents and students were invited to explore the school together trialling different Exploration Pathway activities: they spent time in our Expressive Arts area exploring what opportunities are available in that realm; they tried some of our coaching gadgets in our Sports area; and engaged in activities around our community-based offerings.
Relationships
Finally, we ended the week with a fun day of activities aimed to get students to build more bonds with their peers and to get to know their tutors further. They spent time in the pool learning Paddle Boarding, explored the school doing an Amazing Race task, competed against each other in sack races and tug of war competitions, worked together to build spaghetti towers and navigate water challenges and, finally, they tested their physical and mental agility doing Parkour.
Throughout the week, many of our Senior School students volunteered in sessions, supporting the students and helping them to feel comfortable with being the youngest in our campus. We really feel this week was beneficial to our new Year 7 students, and we are looking forward to watching them grow and develop as they navigate Year 7 and the remainder of Middle School.