



Don't worry, it turns out the move to high school is fun


Jason Cleary-Gorton

The leap to secondary school gives students both mobility and variety.

IPADS, lockers, seven teachers, seven classes, two buildings and 90 new kids. After seven years in junior school and two years in preschool, I've finally made it to high school.

''This is serious'', ''You'll need to focus'', ''No more mucking around'' are some comments I received from parents and adult friends over the weeks leading up to the start of high school. Finally, I'm here and it's not that bad.

At the end of primary school, I felt excited about starting high school. But when the first day arrived and it was actually time to get out of bed, get dressed in long pants (instead of shorts) and then walk to school, I must admit to feeling a bit nervous. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I got.

When I finally arrived at school, the first day was used to settle us in and to meet the other 90 children who had joined our school for the first time. It was not until the second day that high school started to get fun.

I prefer high school to junior school for many reasons. First, you are much more mobile, moving to different classrooms and even different buildings for different subjects.

There's more variety in the subjects than in junior school and not all the kids in year 7 are doing the same subject at the same time.

It's a great feeling asking a friend ''What subject do you have this period?'' or ''What subject do you have in the final period?'' I can't describe why I like it so much, but it just feels great.

While I'm having more fun in high school, the day feels a lot longer than junior school, even though it's only an extra 30 minutes. Maybe I'm just not used to being back or perhaps it's the variety in subjects, classrooms, buildings and teachers.

We move around a lot each day and don't have desks allocated. Instead, we have lockers. I like the lockers because they are much safer, but I don't like the locks. The locks we have all been allocated are like the ones you see in old movies when thieves are breaking into bank safes. ''Three turns to the right; two turns to the left; one turn back to the right!'' While everyone can remember the number combination for their locks, almost no one gets the twists and turns right.

We also use iPads at school this year. In just the first week, we have already had kids caught playing games and distracting themselves with the iPad rather than working. I think for some kids, having the iPad will be lots of fun because it's electronic, but the iPad is full of glitches. My school has already realised this and has added a ''Genius Bar'' for the kids to get technical help, but it can't help with some problems.

Many people will disagree with me, but I like a PC much more and I get the feeling most of the students do, too.

Overall, I prefer high school to junior school, mostly because of the mobility and variety. If you are in year 6 now and you're worried about starting high school, my advice is to stop worrying. It's fun.

Jason Cleary-Gorton is a year 7 student at a Sydney high school and the winner of the Lionel Bowen Young Writers' Award 2012 (short story 11-14 years division).

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