Teachers and students at Mamre Anglican School, in Sydney’s west, share their experiences of the Peer Support Program. The Program helps students to build relationships across the grades, which helps students feel more supported as they adjust to their new school community.
Olivia Winterton, Year 7 Coordinator: So starting high school, it’s definitely a daunting experience for some. It can also be a really exciting time – entering, I guess a new stage of their life, where they’ve got a variety of teachers. And it’s a time where they can meet a variety of new people and new friends.
The Peer Support Program provides an opportunity for our Year 7 students to be involved with some older students in the school, and it gives them a chance to learn, adapt, gives them skills for life, gives them the opportunity to form new relationships and feel supported within that school community. So, I guess there’s this sense of belonging and comfort in knowing they have connections with some older individuals.
Harper, Peer Support Participant (Year 7): The Peer Support Program helped me adapt to high school because they helped me get around the school when I was lost. And I knew I could always go to them when I had a problem or I was struggling with maybe studying or being organised. And it was also great because I got to learn more about my peers that I was going to, like potentially have classes with. And so it made me have more friends and made me know people much better.
Marcus, Peer Support Participant (Year 7): So what we did in the program was, we kind of just like had chats and played like skill-based games that helped us get ready for Year 7. Like in organisational games and organisational skills that we’ve learnt. The chats though, they really helped me because I had known from other people’s experiences that I was not alone and that other people had gone through this. So that made me feel a lot more confident about going into Year 7.
Lorelai, Peer Support Participant (Year 7): The Peer Support Program helped me adapt by giving us great techniques to help us have resilience. It made me feel much more confident going into Year 7, because obviously it’s hard, and having relationships with more than one person was really helpful because even if there was a group task in a class that I didn’t have many friends, I’d still have a connection, and I could call them up to do it with me.
Olivia Winterton, Year 7 Coordinator: So beyond the eight weeks, I definitely think it gives the students opportunity to deal with life challenges with confidence gives them a bit of resilience to be able to progress in their schooling. So yeah, I definitely think it provides the kids with that sense of belonging.
Harper, Peer Support Participant (Year 7): So my Peer Leaders every time we came to our Peer Support lessons, they were always organised, they always made lessons very fun. It made me feel really happy and it made me feel like I also have people in different grades who have also gone through it. And they could help me, and get me through it. And it was always the best.
