Grade 7 Days

The ‘Grade 7 day’ is a day of various activities after the pupils have finished all of their final primary exams. In the past the Beyond Ourselves team have hosted them but in our vision to move all of the schools towards a more sustainable practice we asked the schools to prepare, manage and host them this year – with our support if they wanted.

With a little nervous hesitancy at the start, all of the head-teachers agreed and started to plan and prepare the days. Apart from a discussion as to the content of these days the head teachers asked for no help from us, which was very encouraging to see.

Here is Pastor Festus giving a 'careers guidance' talk

The days were very different to what we usually do and very different from each other but each one was personal to the school.

We were all very encouraged to see the schools stepping up to lead these days. Although we have enjoyed hosting these days in the past, we know that this is not a long-term solution. The children in our schools need to have local people from their own communities motivating them, discussing important issues and caring about them and their future.

Below is a picture of ‘Janet’. She is a local business woman who runs her own shop from her home selling things she buys at a discount price. She allows the people in her community to pay a small amount monthly so they can afford to purchase larger items such as large blankets. She makes quite the profit doing this and eagerly told the young women “I don’t wait for my husband to bring home the money – I go out and get it myself” I think she made quite the impression!

Janet - A local business woman from the Chimwemwe Community

Between the 3 schools the sessions included

Secondary school information – Local secondary teachers and previous students talked about what to expect.

Careers guidance talk– looking at what skills the children have and motivational talks by local business people.

Positive living – this about how to keep yourself safe from contracting HIV and these talks were given by our head-teachers.

                   

For us these grade 7 days were a big success. All of our schools are encouraged to be reflecting on their practise so they can continuously improve. Without our questioning some of the head teachers were already saying what they would do differently next time and all agreed that this is something the schools can host easily and is very valuable to the grade 7 pupils.

We are so encouraged by this and know that next year there will be no ‘nervous hesitancy’ just empowered and motivated head-teachers planning their Grade 7 days with confidence.