Primary School Transition Video Making Project

by Jay Thomas

During my time serving as the Youth Ministry Leader for four congregations in Aberdeen, schools work was a large feature of my role. One particular project I led was with a group of Primary children ahead of their transition to high school.

Twelve pupils needing a little extra support ahead of the move were identified by Primary staff at the various feeder schools, and together they filmed and produced a video showcasing what their new high school would be like. They interviewed High School staff and pupils, as well as shooting footage in and around the school grounds. Once the video was complete, pupils shared the final cut with their classmates who hadn’t been part of the project.

By bringing pupils together from different schools it helped children make new friends with some of the other kids they might be sharing a class with following the summer holidays. The 3 hour session was also facilitated by a number of senior pupils who had been running their own video making lunchtime club.

We started the session with some icebreakers. We split pupils into two teams, trying to mix the groups as much as possible so the children got opportunities to work with as many different people as possible.

Icebreaker: Team Work (Magic Locks)

These puzzle locks work great as a team work exercise and was a fun way of getting the children engaged and buying into the session. The puzzles provided a hands on exercise and helped create a lot of discussion. They are available for purchase from Amazon here.

Icebreaker: Creativity (Imagination Storytelling)

Inspired by this Imagination Workout sheet (attached at the bottom) I drew each of the squares on large sheets of flipchart paper. Working in small groups pupils were tasked with completing the images on four sheets. Once completed they then hand to create a story using the four scenes.

This was a great way in to thinking about the structure of the video we were going to film and put together and what we might want to include.

Worksheet: Imagination Workout

Introducing Evaluation

At this point in the session I introduced the Blob Tree Sheet and asked children to colour or circle the character that represented how they felt about the move to high school. We’d return to these worksheets later.

Photo Challenge

The aim of the activity was to help pupils get to know and explore the school space. Getting lost is often children’s top worry ahead of their move to their new high school. It also offered a more active activity as the previous activities had been based around the table.

Pupils were given a series of questions they had to take pictures of (e.g take a picture of something you think is exciting) and questions that they had to find the information (e.g what’s the librarians name?). While there were some questions specific to the particular school we were working in, most of the photo challenge questions were general and could be used in different settings.

I’ve attached the sheet we used: Photo Challenge

For this exercise we were able to use the school’s supply of iPads.

Discussion

We took 20 minutes before lunch to discuss what information their fellow classmates might want to know about going to high school, and explored how we might find out the information we need. We also drew up a list of questions we could ask members of staff and questions we could ask high school pupils.

Lunch

Giving pupils as wide an experience as possible of what to expect at high school was important, so we had lunch in the school canteen to give them a flavour of how busy the space becomes.

For the second part of the lunch hour we began filming – with one group interviewing each of the year heads and the other group visiting a lunchtime club and interviewing pupils.

Filming

Filming continued after lunch with one group working on a Vox Pop with first year pupils, and the second group visiting and filming within different classes/bases around the school. These locations had been pre-arranged.

Review

Once the filming was complete we took some time to review the footage and to have pupils share how they had felt about their experience. It was a good chance to explore what they had enjoyed about the session, how they were feeling about their transition and to take the opportunity to affirm the kids.

We returned to the Blob Tree and had children circle they character they now felt best represented how they felt about moving to high school. Did they remain the same? Did they move up the tree? Are they now standing on a more secure platform?

Technology

For the project we used the school’s supply of iPads but we also used some handheld video cameras too. We found some inexpensive cameras on Amazon , and although I’d been slightly apprehensive about using them they turned out to be excellent for the purposes of the project. The film and sound quality were perfect.

The cameras can be purchased on Amazon here.

As a school chaplain the project was an excellent way of building relationships with children ahead of their move to high school and a great way of supporting the wider work of the school. School chaplains and workers are often working in both the local primary and secondary schools, and so are well placed to journey with pupils as they make this important transition. They may be a known face to pupils and can help provide an element of stability in the midst of so much change.

Looking back. it was a fairly easy project to manage and run, and pupils had a great time taking part. Perhaps most importantly, the project enabled pupils needing some extra time to adjust to high school, the opportunity to explore and get used to the space without the stigma that’s often attached to extended transition groups.

The final video the pupils made was also shown to parents at the high school information night as well as the pupils sharing with their classmates at their respective primary schools.