Through our Spiral of Inquiry process we learned that our Grade 7 group of students this year seemed to lack the maturity necessary to enable them to be as successful in high school as we hope them to be. This was also legitimized through our conversations with teachers from our feeder high school who commented on their grade 8 students who had come to them from Hamilton were displaying similar traits of maturity. One of the reasons for this may be Hamilton’s distance from the rest of Richmond and any adjacent high school.

After involving our school counsellor in these conversations, he suggested we engage our grade 7 students counselling program run by himself and two other district counsellors that would take place for 2 blocks every Friday for five consecutive weeks. The students learned about and discussed a variety of topics including developing more empathy for others, respectful behavior, and general preparation for the high school setting. The students met in whole group and smaller group settings each with a counsellor or teacher leading the conversations.