Transition – moving from primary to secondary with the Time to Change Club
Moving from primary to secondary school can be a difficult step. The school is usually significantly larger, the work harder, and the culture tougher. But a well-prepared child will manage it well, with a bit of support from family, friends and school staff.
This preparation crucially involves having a chance to think about what’s going to change and an opportunity to talk about it with others. In partnership with Groundwork London and Universal Board Games, ecoACTIVE has been co-ordinating a project over the past two years to help provide that opportunity to students in years 6 and 7 from Hackney schools.
These students were recruited from three primary schools and one secondary school, through taster sessions in which they had a chance to develop team-building skills by playing board games or solving the problem of how to make a bag from an old newspaper and a used cardboard box. Some created their own recycled paper or tried to make a tower from spaghetti and marshmallows – quite a challenge!
Those who signed up through the taster sessions then became members of a Time to Change Club, running either at lunchtime or after school, in which they were encouraged to think, write and talk about changes in their own life as well as in the wider world. ‘Transition Trees’ were used as a means to start these conversations, as well as diaries in which students could record their hopes and fears about the move to secondary school.
And all of this was given a creative context, as the club members learned about transition towns, recycling, seasonal and other environmental changes and were asked to use these themes and their ideas to design a new board game. The diaries gave the students material to help them in the game’s development, but also formed the content of some role-play sessions that we ran with them.
Providing this kind of safe, creative context for young people to raise and resolve their concerns with the help of their peers is a great way to support the move from primary to secondary. And those who went through it this time will, we hope, support the next group of Time to Change club members, giving them the insights that can only come from going through the experience yourself.
