Summer School Success

Transition Day

The thought of starting a new school, a new environment with new teachers and school friends is something that many young boys begin to get a little worried about as the September start date looms.
We do, of course, host an amazing Transition Day (one Saturday morning
towards the end of March) where we arrange for all our ‘new intake’ students come into Southborough and experience a morning of fun activities . Parents are invited along, too, and it proves to be a highly enjoyable day of meeting new friends and putting any worries about ‘big school’ to the side.
However, initially inspired by Lockdown a couple of years back, Southborough High School decided to also run a special ‘Year 6 into Year 7’ two week Summer School in August for students due to start in September.
Heavily subsidised to widen access, many students sign up to the two-week summer camp and it is wonderful to see so many faces on the first day.

The primary focus of our summer school is to introduce the boys to their new school friends, meet staff and re-acquaint themselves with the school buildings, playgrounds and surroundings. From the off-set, boys are given special tours around the school and take part in ‘finding your feet’ sessions designed to help them prepare for the transition from primary to secondary school. Within a few days, it is always wonderful to see newly-confident boys, self-assured in their own abilities, ‘owning’ their new surroundings and clearly benefiting from the new relationships they forge amongst other students and staff.
One of the major concerns shared by Year 6 parents was that they feared that their sons had, during lockdown, fallen behind with vital skills and that as a result they would struggle academically once they joined their new secondary school. To this end, Southborough includes a structured timetable which includes daily Literacy and Numeracy catch-up sessions, all delivered by staff with warmth and encouragement each morning at ‘camp’.

A personal development and wellbeing activity programme is at the heart of the two week summer camp. To this end, the timetable includes a variety of fun-based activities, one of which was some exciting team-building tasks. Put into small groups, the boys were given specific challenges to meet that involved building, testing and experimenting. These tasks gave the boys an ideal opportunity to work as a team, get to know each other better and – crucially- demonstrate their individual, specific strengths and talents to the tasks in hand.

As part of the Y6 Summer school provisions, we also take our new intake of boys to Bushy Park for a series of writing workshops.
The idea behind the ‘Responding to Landscapes’ programme is to provide opportunities for the boys to respond to their experience through writing and photography. This would be guided by workshops taking place not in stuffy classrooms, but the beautiful outdoors.
Ultimately, the boys were able to develop their descriptive writing skills through sensory experience. The woods, the lakes, the ferns and fauna were all used as inspiration to produce poetry, short stories and autobiographical pieces of writing.

“The trip has improved my writing and I know a lot more about the history of Bushy Park and all about Haikus. I really enjoyed it.”

George, Y6

Every afternoon, the boys are given the opportunity to take part in a carousel
of Sport, Art, Cooking and Drama activities.

In Drama sessions, the boys take part in a variety of games that helped develop a number of personal skills including keeping focused, effective teamwork, imagination, coping under pressure and decision-making. Above all, though, the boys have lots of fun and laughter along the way. 

Sport options included games of rounders, football and taking part in assault courses, which keep the boys active and busy and provided them with the chance to have some fun, run around and let off steam.

Here at Southborough we feel strongly about the importance of our boys being able to cook and our Year 6 students certainly rose to the challenge during summer camp. They had lots of un cooking pizzas, cookies and other delicious treats which they thoroughly enjoyed eating with their new friends.

Art sessions also provide the ideal opportunity for students to express their creativity, using a variety of materials in our bright and spacious art rooms.

The two week summer camp ends with a special BBQ and prize giving ceremony.
Parents are invited to join their sons and it’s a wonderful end to what
is, for all, a very special and worthwhile experience. Suffice to say, we know that these Year 6 students will feel so much more confident and excited about joining us in September.
As one parent wrote from last summer:

‘I just wanted to send an email to express our thanks for the Southborough summer school for Year 6. My son thoroughly enjoyed it. Although we booked him in for each day, we were prepared to allow him the occasional day off if needed. However, he enjoyed it so much that he didn’t want to miss out single day of activities! This has been a brilliant introduction to Southborough and he is really excited for the new term.’

Catch-up sessions for Year 10 students, too! Whilst our Year 6 students are making friends and getting to know their new school, we also run a range of special catch up sessions for our Year 10 students. The students find these lessons really useful and it builds up their confidence no end!