This week I’ve had the opportunity to deliver It’s Your Move to Year Six children in two different schools.
IYM is a resource produced by Scripture Union to help children going into secondary schools and is particularly useful in this Covid environment when so much of the usual transition work has been hampered or cancelled.
IYM takes the form of a video presented by Rachel Settatree (formerly of this parish). Through games and discussion she helps the participants think About some of the fears they might have about moving school, as well as exploring some of the opportunities to thrive. There’s opportunity for one to one and group discussion and, brilliantly they’ve included advice and testimony from children who’ve moved up to secondary school. The session concludes with a bible story (Jesus calms the storm) and a moment of prayerful reflection.
Using it in two different contexts it was interesting to see how different things worked with different children. The tie tying competition worked well with both groups, exploring fears seemed to work better in one school but it was amazing to me to see that the bible study had everybody’s attention. They understood that Jesus had power to calm the storm and that this would have been a real comfort to his disciples in the future. As one girl put it, “they would have been surprised but glad to know they had God as their friend.”
Response from the staff was very positive with one teacher saying she could see it was a resource that could be used again and again in the years to come.
If you’re considering doing this in your own context but need a bit more convincing there is an online training course to watch online but in all honesty you probably won’t need it; all the resources you need including a lesson plan are free to download online.
There’s still two or three weeks to the end of term so if you have links with a school there’s still plenty of time to deliver this to the Year Six children in your area. Take a look for yourself and see what you think. After that, it’s your move.
It’s Your Move resource page is here https://content.scriptureunion.org.uk/its-your-move