Case Study: Yarra Primary School

Case Study: Yarra Primary School

Student leadership for transition

Description of context: This case study examines the successful transition strategies at Yarra Primary School (YPS). YPS, originally known as Richmond North Primary School in 1888, is an inner city school situated in Richmond, which serves a diverse community. The school has an enrolment of 236 students in 2015 and operates eleven grades with two straight Prep grades and a number of composite classes from Year 1 through to Year 6. There are two Year 5/6 classes. There is no one main destination secondary school for Year 6 students from YPS with the majority of the students transitioning to high schools outside their school zone. This is especially so for the male students whilst the female students usually transition into Melbourne Girls’ College. The school prides itself on being a close-knit community with strong parental involvement. The Transition Team in this school are the Principal and teachers of the Year 5/6 classes and their roles as transition coordinators come with position descriptors and accountabilities which form part of their performance review.

Aims of the transition strategy:

To develop the leadership, independent learning and social skills of Year 5/6 students

To establish student readiness to meet secondary school expectations

How the strategy is implemented in the school:

a)  Leadership, independent learning and social skills programs [Establishing new relationships]

YPS offers Year 5/6 students several leadership and social skill development opportunities such as: School and House Captains, Junior School Council, Peer Mediators, Assembly Committee and Buddies.

One very successful program that they have been carrying out for several years is the Peer Mediation program. This program is one where all Year 5/6 students are enlisted at the start of the school year. They are trained in a course on how to mediate peer issues for any year level that occur in the yard during recess and lunch. This is carried out with the support of a supervising teacher on yard duty where necessary, for example when the issue involves more than two people. The pair of trained Year 5/6 peer mediators is expected to follow the procedures laid out, such as filling in the peer mediation forms about when the incident took place, who was involved and to discuss and negotiate as a group how to resolve the conflict or any friendship issues. To recognise their contribution and the importance of their role, the school provides vests, badges and certificates.

The most recent addition to the leadership development and social skills program involves all Year 5/6 students adhering to a roster and taking charge of the weekly whole school assembly, a responsibility previously assigned only to the school captain. In preparation for the assembly, groups of 4-5 students are given 2 hours to organise a theme, class performance, student of the week, birthday announcements and any other important messages from teachers. Students also use their own time to set up any technical components before assembly begins at 2:30pm on Friday afternoon. It is the students’ responsibility that all assembly items run smoothly and successfully.

Another leadership activity the school implements is the Buddy program. Each Year 5/6 student is paired up with a Foundation (Prep) student as a buddy who takes on the responsibility to look after the younger student who has just joined the school community. Year 5/6 students take care of their younger buddies by eating lunch with them each day for the first 2 weeks, playing with them at recess and lunch and eagerly participating in fortnightly buddy activities in the classroom.

b)  Establishing student readiness to meet secondary school expectations [Establishing and developing cross institutional curriculum consistency]

The teachers in YPS believe that the Year 6 curriculum is foundational to Year 7. To prepare their students they use pre and post teaching assessment data obtained throughout the year to help them cater to a diverse range of student abilities (progression points 3.5 to 7.5). Teachers often use open-ended activities to engage these students. In preparation for Year 7, teachers include in their mathematics sequence the concept of unknown quantities as an introduction to Algebra. Teaching staff use high school workbooks to familiarise students with secondary mathematics and these are to be completed individually. In English, students are taught strategies to identify key ideas from passages, to analyse and summarise the ideas in preparation for secondary English.

c)  Preparation activities [Strengthening primary and secondary connections]

Preparation activities are carried out by school staff in Terms 3 and 4 to ensure that the transition to secondary school remains a positive one. Students are provided with tubs for their school material, in preparation for school lockers in secondary school. Furthermore, the students are not allowed to go back to the tubs between sessions. They are familiarised with reading timetables by adhering to their rostered peer mediation and assembly schedules. Year 6 students are given opportunities to ask questions of previous YPS students who come back to the school to visit. Their stories and advice provide insights and information that help allay the fears and anxieties that Year 5/6 students may have.

d)  Rite of passage activities [Valuing students]

YPS holds an end of term Graduation Ceremony to commemorate their primary school careers. Parents are invited to the ceremony to look at displays of students’ reflections and speeches. Follow up celebratory activities of the students’ choice involve special meals, fun excursions such as Luna Park and a relaxing day at school such as ‘Pyjamas and Movie’ day. These events are intended as exciting celebrations that highlight the end of their time at primary school and a rite of passage for the Year 6 students to look forward to as they prepare to enter high school.

Evidence of learning outcomes/impact:

The leadership programs have been beneficial as evidenced by the feedback the Principal had received informally from past students. “The feedback [from our students] has been that they valued being trained as leaders because they then have good conflict resolution skills before going to high school.” [Principal YPS]. Consistent with the feedback the Principal reported, students valued the peer mediation and buddy programs. One student commented “…the peer mediation program is really good because you got to learn to solve problems… you learn to manage things and you learn manners even more, you become a really nice person…This is going to be a really good quality in high school because you want to be nice to everyone…”. Another student said the buddy system is useful because “it is not just with younger people but with other people”. In addition, parents shared how their children valued the leadership programs in the school such as the peer mediation course, the peer mediation done in the yard, the joint leadership program with another Primary school (Abbotsford PS) and the leadership camps they go to which develop the whole person. They commented that these leadership opportunities help to develop their children in a holistic way.

Students appreciated how the teachers prepared them to be ready for the curriculum in Year 7. One student said ‘The teacher gave us a sheet of a photocopied maths book and set us to work on our own and it is preparing us for high school.’’ Another student said “…In English, they help with strategies to find main ideas from books and reading comprehension, analyzing things and summarizing thing”. One student observed that teachers tried to transition them to high school subject learning by “start (ing) to impose stricter rules such as reminding about not forgetting books, being organised…”

Many of the girls who go to Melbourne Girls College have older siblings or friends who go to Melbourne Girls College. One student happily envisages that ‘…you get support from other girls that go there and my sister goes there and my parents always encourage me to make friends.’ Parents commented about the tight groups of friends they have at this school that have been maintained even after they have gone to secondary school and the high level of support from the teachers at the primary school contributing to a very tight knit community.

Parental support for student independence was one of the key strategies that parents mention as being vital to successful transition. Parents cite the importance of making themselves available and helping their children be prepared for secondary school by ‘banking up the calm’. One parent said she allayed her son’s uncertainty by ensuring that ‘…over the school holidays we got our bike and we rode to his new school to work out how long it would take and the best route to go to make sure it’s not dangerous for him … used the tram to get to school and I said we‘ll be doing a few more tram connections on how to get home or how to get from there to swimming lessons. All that preparation will make him feel not so nervous.’

Steps for future improvement:

The school has many activities that assist students to have a successful transition. These activities are currently being documented. YPS is in the process of identifying and flowcharting the transition process as a consequence of participating in the ‘Joining The Dots’ forum. It was also an identified area in the school’s Strategic Plan. In doing so, they hope that the transition processes will be clearly understood and the transition strategies will continue to be implemented, reviewed and streamlined regardless of who the transition leadership personnel may be.

Data from the Attitudes to School Survey have been unpacked with an educational consultant coming to the school and conducting focus group interviews with Year 5-6 students to inform the annual implementation plan for next year.

Parents pointed out the need for YPS to provide information about other options such as the accelerated programs that are available in government high schools. This information needs to be provided earlier on when children are in Year 5. However, as there are so many schools that students attend, getting the right information can be a challenge for teachers. This is especially true of this school where there is no one main destination high school for boys to go to. The girls tend to go to the main destination school and can adjust socially there as they have friends that they know since prep days. The boys are often in a new school with very few friends from their primary school. As Richmond High School is in the process of being planned, it is hoped that a new local high school will help to ease transition issues for local students.

Advice to other schools:

The principal and the transition team need to work closely to implement and reflect on the transition practices by engaging in professional learning informed by current literature and the sharing of ideas and best practice. Schools need to factor transition processes into staff workload and recognise it as part of staff career development and as an important area of responsibility.

Contact for more information:

Tracy Hammill

Principal

Yarra Primary School