Its been just over a month since we welcomed our new Year 7 students into our school and they have had a great start!
Two of our Year 7 students wanted to share with you their experience of starting Year 7 at Kinver High School.
Lottie - Year 7 Student
Hello, my name is Lottie - Mae and since starting at Kinver I have thoroughly enjoyed the first few months I've had here. I came from The Ridge Primary School which is a small school in Wollaston, Stourbridge. Due to COVID we sadly didn’t get the full primary to secondary transition experience but as always Kinver still made it just as exciting. In the summer holidays Kinver High hosted a summer school to welcome all the new year sevens. This allowed us to get a taste of what school life is like at Kinver High and also gave us the opportunity to make new friends ready for the start of September; I definitely made a few new friends! By coming to summer school in the six weeks it gave me reassurance about our first day and what was going to happen. In the duration of summer school, I went to Kinver Edge, did treasure hunts around the school and even had a trip to the safari park!
Before I knew it, I was starting my first day of secondary school. I was a little apprehensive before I started (which is totally normal!) but after summer school I knew it would be fine. On the first day we had an assembly with the Head of Lower School to welcome us and we got told our form group. In form time we have a chance to speak to new people and make new friends. Each day in form we do a different activity like the newsroom, learn about a career or have a weekly assembly. All the form tutors and teachers our lovely and you can trust and speak to any of them. Your form tutors offer great support to you if you ever need to talk to them or have any questions or queries.
If you need to talk to any staff on the weekend or out of school you can use Kinver’s useful and easy to use online learning platform called EDGE. EDGE is great way to look at homework you’ve been set, see upcoming events and track your positive reward points. Positive reward points are points you have been given by members of staff for working hard in your lessons. If you’ve earned a lot of reward points you will get a mention in Kinver High's School Newsroom on a Friday in form time!
At Kinver they offer an amazing enrichment activities which are after school on a Tuesday and Wednesday. This term I’m taking part in Performing Arts and Netball and next term I will get to choose something different. We are also very fortunate to have a brand new sports hall, dance studio and performance room. There is such a wide range of activities you can do. Linking to performances, this year I am looking forward to go and watch the Nutcracker with other year sevens and eights.
For anyone who is worried about starting secondary school I would say to remember that everyone is in the same position and we all feel the same. Secondary school here at Kinver High is amazing and I know you‘ll love it too.
Thanks for taking the time for reading my blog, I hope to see some of you soon around school!
Toby - Year 7 Student
I am Toby and I am in year 7 at Kinver High School. I joined Kinver from Wolverley Primary. There are four houses in my year and I am in Somery House; the others are Lee, Grey & Whittington.
I like Kinver High School because there are many opportunities to get involved with including student leadership, the Grange Guardians, Subject Ambassadors, Anti-bullying ambassadors and Literacy Champions.
‘The Grange’ is where are Guinea Pigs are housed and is so popular with year seven students. There are 4 and they are called Smudge, Ron, Oreo, and Pip. You can meet them in form time, lunch and break times.
Form time is first thing in the morning and enables you to meet with people in your tutor and talk to them whilst doing activities. Each week there is a student ‘Star of the week’ and on a Friday we have the ‘Kinver Newsroom’ which tells you about recent worldwide news, local news and school news!
How could I write a school blog and not include lunch! Lunchtime is one of my favourite things, there is hot food for people with money on their ID payment card or you can bring a packed lunch if you prefer.
Our enrichment program is where you stay after school to do a set activity, my two activities are mindfulness and a performance group on Wednesday. Every pupil does enrichment every Tuesday and Wednesday. There are many opportunities to do this and the activities change every 6 weeks.
Lots of students travel by bus to school so there are many coaches and you can sit with your friends. When you board the coach, you will be met by the driver and they will ask you to scan your ID card (this notifies the teachers if you are on the bus or not to help keep us safe).
My 3 favourite lessons are Maths, Science (Chemistry) and Geography. Maths is fun, we are currently learning how to effectively use scientific calculators! Chemistry is also remarkably interesting, as every few weeks we do a practical. Some practical lessons require special chemicals and fascinate me massively. Geography is all about map skills, compasses, and locations. We also learn about natural features such as volcanoes.