As the Summer Holidays approach and the school year comes to an end, year 6 pupils in Primary Schools across the district have already started to turn their attention to what lies ahead in the Autumn.
As part of The Door’s ongoing commitment to supporting young people aged 11-25, our Community Youthworkers spend the Summer Term visiting Year 6 classrooms to equip pupils with the skills they may need come September. Noah, Community Youth Worker in Cam and Dursley, continues:
“Each summer I go into local Primary Schools to work with young people on some of the key skills that will hopefully support them in their transition to secondary school and into teenagehood. I take a restorative circle approach, so where possible, we will sit in a circle and have a talking piece. The rule is that whoever holds the talking piece can talk, and everyone else respects and listens. There is no obligation to say anything and everyone is free to pass the talking piece on. This creates a safe space for young people to share their throughts and feelings on their terms. Over the sessions we focus on the following skills:
Processing and dealing with emotions: helping the young people to deal with various emotions, showing them that there are different ways to deal with them and that not everyone will go about things the same way. One of the questions I will ask at the end of each activity is how the activity made them feel, giving them a chance to reflect on what emotions came up for them.
Non verbal communication: helping the young people to communicate in alternative ways than talking as well as being aware of others body language.
Problem solving and collaboration: aiming to have the young people work together to find a solution for their group, where one person shouting and telling everyone what needs to be done will not be successful, but listening to each other’s ideas and discussing them gets to a solution quicker.
Reflection: at the end of each activity, we ask the young people 3 questions, firstly, how they found the activity, which is more around the activity rather than emotions during the activity. Secondly, how they felt during the activity. Lastly, what they think the point of that activity was. These questions hopefully allow for some reflection on the activity, what they can take away from it and allow them to process their emotions from the activity.
As well as equipping young people with these skills, by going into primary schools I am able to introduce The Door and myself to the Year 6’s. To let them know about our other support services and that they have a local youthworker. This is always especially useful for those that go onto attend local Secondary School Rednock, where I can often be found during term time. It means I can be a familiar face for them.
These sessions are also a great opportunity to invite young people to come to The Door’s youth clubs, at the end of the final session I formally invite them to the youth clubs, giving them a flyer with information about where and when the youth club is.
This year I had some students from Rednock with me on work experience, this was a great opportunity for the year 6s to be able to ask them some questions, this could be about school, youth club or anything else. The students handled their questions really well and our hope is that the year 6’s will now be less concerned about their move to ‘Big School’.”
Find out more about The Door’s youth clubs and youthwork team at thedoor.org.uk