Year 6 transition to secondary school material & book review by Becky Lawrence, Youth and Children’s Worker, St Marks MK

Before my current role at St Marks Mk, I worked for 5 and half years for Bridgebuilder Trust who are a local schools work charity here in Milton Keynes, they serve over 100 local primary schools and 15 of the 23 secondary school sites locally.

One of the big annual projects I was involved with was year 6 transition to secondary school.  We would train year 11, 6th form and uni pupils to join our team and to help present a session in primary schools.  We also prepared them to answer questions from year 6’s in a way that calmed worry and fear and encouraged them for their big move to secondary school.  We used to recruit older young people for our team through churches but in the end we found it more successful to use our good connections with a local secondary school who released a bunch of their sixth formers to be involved.  This allowed us to also build connection and relationship with new young people on the team over the 2 weeks also.

Once we gathered team, we invited primary schools to be a part of it and scheduled them in for a fun engaging session that contained games, a drama, advice, encouragement and a Q&A.  Over 2 weeks in the summer term we arranged to go in and visit over 50 local primary schools to provide a session for year 6 pupils to help them with their preparation for moving to secondary school.

As part of this project we would give away a free copy of Scripture Union’s ‘It’s your Move – Secondary School Survival Guide’ book to each pupil, we asked local churches to help cover the cost which was a great way for them to get involved in their community.  Many of the churches also had representatives (vicars, youth/kids workers or a volunteer) who came to be part of their local session, and presented the books as a gift from the local church to the pupils.

As part of our session at the end we left plenty of time for year 6 pupils got to ask our team questions about what secondary school would be like – for instance ‘is there bullying?’ ‘what if i struggle to make friends?’ ‘what is the best thing in the canteen?’ ‘what fun clubs or sports are there?’ and ‘how strict are the teachers?”.  It was a chance to reassure year 6 pupils and squash their fears.  It also provided a great link for a leader to encourage pupils by talking about their own experience how they overcame any fears or worry and how prayer and faith in God helped give them strength & hope.

Schools really appreciated the project and many would book a session year on year for their year 6’s.  We found the book to be a great engaging free gift for year 6’s that they could use both in class with their teacher as a follow on to our session and something to take home to keep.  We always found young people were excited to get something for free.  The book has a colourful fun cover and features loads of tips, stories from pupils just like them, a wordsearch, games and more.

Scripture Union says: “The It’s your Move booklet covers all the issues a young person might worry about, with special focus on getting to school, doing homework and finding your way around.  It’s Your Move also covers some of the more difficult aspects of life at secondary school including making friends and bullying.

The latest edition includes more space for young people to make notes, remember their primary school days, and record what’s going well, along with stories and advice from other young people who have survived the move. Many churches have partnered with local schools and Scripture Union teams to present It’s Your Move to pupils through special assemblies or talks, which have helped to forge a lasting relationship. As a result, many hundreds of churches have then been asked back to run assemblies and help out with RE lessons and other activities.”

 

Scripture Union also has survival story videos featuring youth who’ve made the move to secondary school, plus a workshop, lesson plans and assembly plan resources of the same theme for teachers or youth/kids leaders to use.  You could use these in school if you already do schools work, or in church or as part of a special prep session in another context with year 6.  There are also new related SU resources from last year produced during lockdown to help parents equip their children for moving to secondary school.

 

You can buy the book in packs of 10 (currently on special offer for £16 until 31/05/21) and check out the associated resources here: https://content.scriptureunion.org.uk/its-your-move