Stepping Up
A celebration evening took place recently to mark seven young people’s achievements in creating a DVD on transition from primary to secondary school.
The Year 7 pupils from Small Heath School in Birmingham worked with Spurgeons’ Stepping Stones Re:Connect with education project to create the DVD, which will be shown to more than 200 Year 6 pupils across the city this summer.
The DVD encapsulates young people’s experiences and aims to ease fears around transition to secondary school by giving hints and tips to make the switch as smooth as possible, as one of the participants 12-year-old Arooba explains:
“Making friends and getting lost were my biggest worries because the school is much bigger and I wish I’d had a DVD to watch.”
The group named the DVD ‘Step Up’ as it signifies stepping up to a new stage and being brave and confronting fears, and the pupils enjoyed feeling they were helping others as 11-year-old Hassan explains:
“I didn’t want other children to feel that because they’re going to another school they’re going to feel upset because they think they might get bullied.
“I wanted to show them not to worry because there’s always someone to help.
“Going to secondary school was a better experience than I thought, but it’s still a big step.”
To accompany the DVD, the young people also produced a pocket mod to secondary school, which includes hints and tips on travelling to school, avoiding detention and completing homework.
Re:Connect operates across Small Heath, Bordesley Green, Sheldon and Shard End, which have some of the highest numbers of children ‘disconnected’, from education in Birmingham.