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At this age, girls are experiencing significant changes in physical, intellectual and emotional development.
They are beginning to discover what truly interests them and to understand where their strengths lie. It is well recognised that students in Year 7 and 8 require specialist programmes in order to prepare them for their secondary school years.
As they prepare for this transition, our girls are offered new and varied challenges with a focus on helping them develop study skills, manage their time more independently, and to guide them in the exploration of their individual talents and aptitudes. At this level, our girls are exposed to a wide range of assessment tasks including examinations and they are well prepared to command advantageous places in New Zealand's top secondary schools.
As seniors in the School, there are many leadership opportunities for these older girls.
At Year 8 there are eight defined roles of leadership including Head Girl, Deputy Head Girl, House Prefects, School Council Prefect and Chapel Prefect. All Year 8 students are provided with many other opportunities to provide leadership service at school wide events.
Learning to be leaders is an on-going process and our girls at Year 7&8 enjoy leadership camps, in school training and visiting speakers; all of whom will help to develop their skills. Year 7 students are expected to fulfil roles as monitors throughout the school in preparation for their final year at school.
Year 7 and 8 students are divided into small tutor groups with a teacher in charge. In addition, they are taught by specialist teachers for all subjects moving from class to class.
Exposure to a variety of teachers at this age helps ease the transition to secondary schooling and prepares students for different teaching styles. Subjects taught include English, mathematics, social science, science, physical education, music, technology, Christian education and art. French, English and Spanish are offered as semester courses and whole year courses.
Enhanced student learning occurs within the classroom programme as well as extension programmes such as Mathex for specific students. All students participate in the STEAM programme where the focus is on problem solving, collaboration and critical thinking. The focus for the Epro8 challenge includes engineering to art, electronics to mathematics and problem solving.
Students who may need some extra support are also catered for with a personalised programme.
