School website: http://www.williamparker.northants.sch.uk/
SUMMER TERM
WEEK ONE
Tuesday 23rd June: Session one: Children took part in some ice breakers and introductory activities where they could meet pupils from different schools, practise their speaking and listening skills and improve their confidence in speaking in front of a group. It was a really hot afternoon so we took the opporunity to sit outside for a break and use the next door’s school field, Falconer’s Hill.
Group juggling went very well, with 8 balls flying around at once. This is a hand-eye co-ordination and observation skills game as well as a useful way to get to know everyone’s names. Everyone ended up laughing when the balls seemed to have a mind of their own!
Mrs. Weedon and Mrs. Letts from the Northants Study Centres helped the group get competitive during ‘player card maths’, using Cobblers players’ squad numbers to form sums using variations of the four mathematical functions. Both teams worked well together (they had only just met!) and used tactics to decide who to place in what position.
Mrs. Barton (a learning mentor from Falconer’s Hill) showed the children how to make origami football T shirts and encouraged them to write on them their thoughts about leaving primary school. She asked them to write down what they would like to leave behind (this could be negative behaviour, a teacher, a particular room or subject, ‘bad’ friends etc), what they would like to take with them to secondary school (this could be a favourite piece of equipment, a friend or teacher, individual skills they possess etc) and a magic ‘wish’ of something they would like at secondary school. Ideas ranged from having a good time, making new friends, being better at maths, having a fresh start, working in proper science labs, playing different sports and being more confident. This is a great way to get children talking about their worries about changing schools whilst keeping things positive. The idea that you can ’start afresh’ was appealing to some pupils.
Mrs. Milton and Mrs Gee, pastoral staff from William Parker School, were on hand to answer any questions covering a wide range of areas including homework, behaviour, the house system, punishments, form tutors, different subjects and lunch/break times. Mrs. Vincent, school SENCO (special educational needs co-ordinator) popped in to meet the students and have a chat with them to put them at ease about secondary school. These pastoral members of staff will be directly responsible for the children when they start in September in year 7.
The session went very well with everyone enjoying themselves and getting a lot out of it. This is a great example of partnership working and all staff involved were very impressed with the group’s positive attitude and excellent behaviour. They all put lots of effort in and are definitely bonded as a group, they are certainly a lively lot!
WEEK TWO
This week, students worked in teams to play ‘gutter ball’, where communication and teamwork is essential. Fair play and tactics are also needed to play well. Getting the ball in the hoop was slightly easier than reversing the line and going backwards!
For the ’school information’ part of the session, Mrs. Gee and Mrs. Milton took the group on a tour of the school grounds, looking at all the different subject departments, facilities and open areas. The secondary school students were out for lunch so the year 6s met a few of them too. Back in the classroom, the pupils were able to talk about the differences between primary and secondary school regarding the buildings, facilities, equipment and departments. The cookery rooms and science labs seemed to be of most interest to them.
In the ‘PfS’ section of the day, the year 6s looked at ‘cricket and the 5 senses’. They watched famous batters and bowlers in action from the Ashes 2005 series and put themselves ‘into their shoes’ to write about what they would be able to see, hear, taste, see and touch around them. The next stage was to produce some powerpoint presentations with descriptive sentences and photos. The children’s ICT skills were good and they were able to experiment with backgrounds, formats, text and layout. They worked on their literacy skills in pairs and came up with some really interesting sentences. See their work below:
Next, Mrs. Barton got the children to put everyone’s names into a wordsearch using a free computer programme (www.puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com) . This was to show that this group can rely on each other as friends/as a team when they start at school in September.
WEEK THREE
The hoop game got the children working together to move hoops around the circle, play catch up and swap 2 hoops at the same time. No hands were allowed, only bodies to move the hoops. This game is dependant on whoever is standing next to you. We got pretty good by the end of the game with hoops of different sizes going around the circle smoothly, Mrs. Sutton who was new to the project was loving it! A lot of giggling was heard and the children encouraged each other.
Miss. Letts took the transition part of the session this week. She talked to the group about behaviour and consequences. She asked them to draw a cartoon strip of how an incident/their actions had had negative consequences in the past. They also had to think of how to make a different choice in the same situation and act in a positive manner instead, that would result in better consequences. Some students chose to focus on falling out with a friend, getting into a fight, disobeying a teacher and how to react to someone being nasty to them.This activity got pupils to reflect on how their choices and behaviour has consequences and that they are in control of every situation. We talked about how you can’t be responsible for someone else’s actions but you are responsible for your own and can choose how to act.
For the ‘Playing for Sucess’ sports part of the session, Miss. Letts taught a literacy, numeracy and ICT lesson all rolled into one, choosing a fantasy football team. The pairs acted as club managers and chose premiership players to fill their team, they had £50 million to spend. They used transfer figures to check their budgeting as they went along. Most pairs had to change their mind and get rid of more expensive players such as Rooney, Ronaldo and Terry and exchange them for less well know and ‘cheaper’ players.This is quite a difficult balancing act but everyone managed it in the end.
Mrs. Milton got the children to ‘thought share’ items from the William Parker uniform, girls and boys versions. They group designed the uniform on their stick men very artistically. Next they had a go at tying a tie, something they will have to do daily when they start secondary school. Apparently in order to get the right length of tie, there needs to be 7 black stripes visible in the long part.
A quick wordsearch to find items of school equipment for lessons was the last activity of the day.
AUTUMN TERM
WEEK FOUR
We welcomed the students back, now in year 7, and heard about how they had been settling into their new school. They were asked to tell staff what behaviour rules, expectations and reward system the school has and how they adhered to them. It was great to hear all their stories and see them in their new uniform looking so grown up.
As a teamwork activity, they worked in small groups to construct cricket wickets, looking at how the bales and stumps fit together. They needed to show good communication and co-operation skills to be successful. The wickets’ ‘falling ability’ was tested.
A Northampton Town Football Club match day programme was used for joint numeracy/literacy work. Students had to solve the maths clues to find the right page numbers then use their reading skills (scanning, skimming, looking for key information, summarizing) to solve crossword answers. These were based around players, the club, Sixfields stadium, mascots, sports phyisotherapy, community football events and visiting teams.
The transition content was led by Helena Weedon. She asked the pupils to talk in pairs about various secondary school experiences. They then reported back their feelings about the similarities and differences between primary and secondary, what worries/problems they had at the beginning of term and what they did to solve them and what three things they like about secondary school. (As well as a variety of other questions) Everyone was really honest and shared their opinions confidently. It was good to compare these thoughts and feelings to those we discussed in the summer sessions.
WEEK FIVE
Helena led the children in ’solution-focused’ work. They were asked to think about their favourite and least favourite lessons and write down their reasons for their choices. They had to rate them on a scale of 0-10 then as a class we discussed how to improve the negative scores and how to transfer good learning skills from the favourite lesson to the least favourite. We tried hard to break down statements such as ‘It’s boring’ , ‘I can’t do it’ and ‘I hate it’ and find reasons for such views. Usually the students could dissect their feelings and talked about the real issues such as lesson content, wanting to answer questions, teacher relationships, friends influences and ability. This problem-solving activity enabled the group to look further into their school experiences and take confidence from their best subjects into their lesser favoured lessons.
A playing card memory game came next as a ‘brain break’, whereby teams had to communicate effectively with each other to remember and describe where certain cards were and put them into order.
Playing cards were used for mental maths games involving pairs playing ‘maths snap’ using multiplication, addition and subtraction. This got quite competitive and everyone enjoyed it, despite Anna making them use negative numbers! Afterwards, the group swapped strategies on how they worked the calculations out.
Three year 8 students were invited along to answer questions about their transition experiences at William Parker. After talking about questioning and interviewing techniques, the year 7s planned their questions to ask, such as “What worries did you have and how did you overcome them?”, “Did you get lost and what did you do?”, “Do you prefer this school to your primary and why?”, “How did you make friends?” and “Did you have any family or friends already at this school and how did they help you settle in?” The three lads were excellent in providing clear answers and were very honest about their experiences. They had some good advice on how to handle a wide variety of problems and situations such as forgetting homework, after school clubs, preparing equipment and kit the night before, which teachers to ask for what, where to go if you lose something, what to do if you are bullied, how to get extra help and how to find your way around the school. Both year 7s and year 8s showed good listening skills, respect for each other and an effective interviewing technique.
To finish off, a speaking and listening game called “Who’s in the box?” Each person has a go at choosing a celebrity out of the box to describe while the rest of the group guesses who it is. Some were easier than others and the variety of descriptive language was wide. This was a really fun game which engages students easily, they don’t realise they are practicing some useful learning skills.
WEEK SIX
Anna brought the Saints rugby kit into school to talk about safety, protection, materials, flexibility and comfort of the various parts. Students took notes about the scrum cap, body armor, boots, gumshield, shirt, shin pads and gloves. This is a good and interesting way to practice note-taking which is needed in many subjects and we talked about how to listen out for key information. After the talk, pupils tried the kit on.
The group had a go at ‘punctuation kung-fu’. This involves doing the actions for each punctuation mark with accompanying sound effects. After discussing what each punctuation mark means, the children had a go at putting them all together in different orders.
Using a publisher document in ICT, transition leaflets were created, pulling together content from all the transition information, thoughts and recent activities. The year 8 interview transcripts were also used to write the leaflet, areas such as ‘Worries’, ‘What to do if…’, ‘How secondary school is different from primary’, ‘How to make new friends’ and ‘Where to go for help’. Pupils used graphics, altered the text and format. There was a lot of useful and invaluable information which could easily be used as advice for year 6 students next year. This shows how far the year 7s have come, they are able to look back and advise others using their transition experiences.
Helena Weedon led ‘cup/speed stacking’ which is a great way to work on co-ordination skills. The group had to undertake various activities using the cups and had a lot of fun.The timing mat was used to see who could stack cups in a certain order the fastest. This proved to be a hard-fought competition!
This is the last time the study centres’ staff will see this group, so we wish them the best of luck for the rest of their secondary school time.
