Growing up and making school work

By JULIE MIDDLETON

"We're not forgotten - but we are second priority against senior students. But, hey, regardless of what's going on in our lives, our learning is up to us."

That's the word from east Auckland teenagers as they discuss an Education Review Office report which describes 13 and 14-year-olds - Years 9 and 10, or the old third and fourth forms - as facing "the forgotten years" in New Zealand education.

Actually, these Howick College teenagers are puzzled anyone would label them so. They're not convinced the transition to intermediate and then to secondary two years later with the changes of puberty equal two changes too many.

Says Benson Chen, 15: "They are overstating the impact of growing up - they are making it sound like a terrible experience."

Peter Bevan and Jon Craig, both 13, say their transition from intermediate to secondary this year made them feel like small fry in a big puddle - the school has 2400 students - but their nerves and confusion were temporary.

Peter says that intermediate school prepared him for change.

Familiar faces accompanied them to college.

Homework was piled on "gradually". Juniors and seniors mixed in "vertical tutor groups" which brought cross-sections of the school together.

Peter says juniors may be "forgettable ... but it's up to the student. The teachers and seniors will put out a hand, and you have to grasp it."

These children of an individualistic generation are under no illusions: their education is up to them. Amelia van Slooten, now 16 and in the fifth form, says she knew the deal by the start of the fourth form, when students were expected to be settled: "You're expected to keep your own studies up, to be responsible for your own learning."

The students accept, with mild grumbling, that senior students have milestones to meet so their needs come first, especially when teachers are wading through piles of marking.

"I don't think we're forgotten [at 13 and 14], they just put more emphasis on the senior students," says Amelia.

The 13-year-olds generally toe the line at school, says 15-year-old Chris Sole: it's the 14-year-olds, comfortable at college but not yet focused on exams, who are more likely to "slack off a bit" and bring bad attitudes to class. But the thing most likely to turn teenagers off learning is negative peer pressure, says Chelsea, citing the influence of "the popular girls" on classroom behaviour.

She says sport can be to the detriment of study, and the lure of a wage before an education.

She's in no doubt where priorities should lie: "If you don't get fifth form, you'll be working on a checkout in Pak 'N Save for the rest of your life."