Year 7 – from a student perspective

Moving to secondary school can feel scary – we remember how it felt! We want to help you feel as confident as possible so we spent some time answering some of the questions we had before starting at JCoSS. We hope it helps and look forward to seeing you in September.
By Josh, Nikita & Maddy

What is the difference between primary and secondary school?

In two words: Not much. Well not in a big way anyway. The lessons are better most of the time, and because you’re older, you get to do cooler science experiments, more exciting maths projects, and go on awesome school trips.
Everyone’s worried that there’s going to be a really big scary difference between primary and secondary school, but in truth, it’s very similar. Depending on where you used to go, you might have to get up a little earlier, but other than that it’s pretty much the same.

Are break times fun?

Of course. Break times in secondary schools are just as great, if not better than, break times in primary school. During morning break you have the benches, the MUGA (multi-use games area) and even table tennis tables.
During lunch you also get to go to the library – if you want – or, best of all a whole host of cool lunchtime clubs including netball, football, science, debating, orchestra and many more. All of these are optional of course and you can come once just to see whether you like it. If you don’t, you don’t have to come back.

What food does the cafeteria serve?

The school cafeteria provides a variety of food. At breaktime they serve hash browns, toast, bagels and sometimes even hot dogs! Of course there is always lots of fruit as well.
As we are a Jewish school, our cafeteria is strictly kosher. At lunch you can buy either a cold or hot meal. A hot meal is food which has been cooked by our lunch ladies. A cold meal consists of sandwiches, fruit pots and salad.

What is enrichment

Enrichment is more or less what primary schools call clubs. It’s an activity where teachers decide what they want to teach e.g. Martial Arts, Animation, Film Making, Comedy and the pupils get to choose what they want to do. In other words, it’s a lesson where you get to learn something that you really want to.

Will it be easy to make friends? Will I be able to stay with my old friends?

It may seem scary at first but everyone seems to make friends surprisingly quickly. I was very nervous, however after the first few days, I had made loads of new friends.
It’s not guaranteed you will be in the same class as your old friends. My best friend and I aren’t in the same class for anything however I feel I have truly benefited from that. I have made more new friends than I think I would have if I was in his class and we still get to hang out with each other at break and at lunch.