Why high school is coming early for these northern beaches students

3 months ago 15

The thought of starting high school had 12-year-old Eli Wegenaar “shaking in his boots”.

The Harbord Public School student had a bad case of pre-high school jitters – a common experience, said vice principal Priscilla Wright, who noticed year 6 students struggled with fear of the transition.

Eli Wegenaar with classmates at Harbord Public School.

“Everyone for years had been saying ‘we are not doing this right’,” Wright said, adding there had been a rise in students skipping school.

“We just lost the kids in term four. They were disengaged, there were behaviour issues, lots of anxiety.”

To tackle the problem, the school reformatted term four to resemble high school and gave students more responsibilities.

Backed by UNSW research, the children were given their own timetable, had a new teacher for each subject, and were told to take responsibility for their equipment and homework.

Students listen to high school teacher Sarah Peachman, head teacher of English at Freshwater Senior Campus.

Local high school teachers were also brought in for their subjects, giving both sides the chance to understand each other.

“It’s given us the opportunity to look at year sixers in their natural habitat,” said Freshwater High School English department head Sarah Peachman, who teaches the students each week.

“The cognitive load in year 7 must be enormous, going from classroom to classroom, and having different teachers and different teaching styles and different expectations across classrooms, that’s huge.

“Any opportunity to build some of their resilience and their skills in that space is valuable.”

The Department of Education is eager to take the experiment to other schools. Principal Susan Tickle said she has seen a transformation in her students, who are displaying greater independence.

“We have definitely noticed a lot more positive behaviour and motivation, passion and excitement. We are not having parents drop off drink bottles, sports equipment,” she said.

Eli said the program made him feel supported, which research found to be a key predictor of future success.

“I was feeling super nervous, so scared, I was not actually ready to move into the later years. I was so used to this [primary school] setting, I didn’t even know what a timetable was – I thought it was just multiplication!” Eli said.

Harbord Public year 6 students Heidi Rebbeck, 12, and Summer Dubois, 11, are part of a program where the final term is being run in a high school format.

“The most surprising thing about this program, to be honest, was probably finding out how unorganised I was, and changing that to be more organised.

“At the start of the program, I was forgetting my pencil case every time, I was forgetting which classroom I was in. You can’t have that in high school. But after this program, I have kind of figured it out.”

Best friends Summer Dubois, 11, and Heidi Rebbeck, 12, said the program has helped them overcome homework anxiety.

“I feel like I’m less scared and, like, more prepared, of like, the workload and the homework,” Summer said.

“I definitely feel more relaxed because I’m not worrying about what high school is going to be like. Now I know.”

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