I wrote an earlier article about the wonderful way in which the older boys take an interest in the younger boys. That article focused on how this occurs in sport. This is not where it stops, however.

In Week 9 our Head of Mathematics, Mr Thompson, and I had an opportunity to join our two classes together. Mr Thompson teaches one of the Year 7 classes while I teach the Year 9 Accelerated class (who are studying the Year 9 and 10 course in one year). Several boys in my class were at Colo while quite a few of his class were away as well.

So we got the boys together, introduced each of the Year 7 boys to a Year 9 Maths Mate and set the older boys the task of teaching the Year 7s about their new topic – directed numbers.

It was wonderful seeing the Year 9 boys helping the boys and showing an genuine interest in whether or not they understood. Different boys used different methods but each of them were able to explain the concept to the younger boys.

For years it has been known that peer tutoring is very successful. Unfortunately we don’t get all that many opportunities to practise it. On this day, however, we had the chance and grabbed it. There is no doubt that both the younger and older boys got much out of the experience.

We finished the lesson with some games where the boys worked in pairs with their Maths Mate and we even had a short comp between the Year 7s and Year 9s. Well done to the Year 7s who won this easily!

Thanks to the Year 9s for helping out the boys – something that I am sure will continue at various times over the coming years.

Photo 1:  Greg Quirk (on the left) helps out Charlie Howald (St Ives) with his directed numbers.

Photo 2:  Connor Green (Ashtonfield) is assisted by Jack Larkins from Year 9.