Rock Up: An initiative supporting students' wellbeing in their transition to secondary school

Brenda Carmen, Louise Waycott and Ken Smith

Children and Youth Services Review, 2011, vol. 33, issue 1, 167-172

Abstract: This paper reports the background and findings of the community-based pilot program 'Rock Up' to school. The Rock Up program was directed at a niche section of young students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 to respond to identified risk factors associated with disengagement from formal education. The Rock Up approach was to energise these students' connection to learning as they approach the difficult stage of transition from primary school to secondary school. Ultimately, Rock Up aims to assist those students in their development of wellbeing, within and outside of the school environment. The operational measures of wellbeing covered; academic, social, emotional, behavioural, and school absence. Thirteen students, who had been identified by their respective teachers, were invited to participate in individual and/or group activities that focused on their wellbeing and developing their readiness for secondary school. Written and verbal feedbacks from students, teachers, parents, and the program facilitator, were in the main very positive. Analysis of the data of the first round of the program using a three-wave questionnaire and a participatory action research approach indicated the need to proceed to a new round using more refined processes. When fully developed, Rock Up is intended to be the vanguard for collaborative practice between the education and community sectors throughout Victoria and to be an example of an efficient and effective model of transition for this age-group.

Keywords: Primary; to; secondary; school; transition; Participatory; action; research; Student; at; risk; Wellbeing; Community; agency; Pilot; study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190-7409(10)00291-4
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:33:y:2011:i:1:p:167-172

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().