I'm Caleb Sullivan and I'm in year 6. I've been at Chapman Primary School since preschool.
Probably the main thing I would change about my school would be the classroom layouts, and then secondly, the playground area, and then thirdly, they need more teachers because there's a shortage.
In year 6, there's three classes of about 25 students in one big area. It's the same for most years. Sometimes there's four classes in one space, depending on how big the cohort is.
I used to get a lot of headaches because it was so loud in the classroom sometimes. We can hear the noise from other classes in our classroom. I'd rather it would be like individual classrooms instead of open plan.
There used to be a teaching space and a carpet area for each class but now there's not enough space. They changed the way the desks are arranged for explicit teaching and so all the desks are separated now instead of all together.
For spelling and maths, we are in small groups. And then for writing and novel study, one teacher teaches us all, and then we go off into our classrooms to do the task. And then for all those extra subjects it's all together.
On Mondays and Wednesdays we learn Indonesian. We've been learning Indonesian since kindergarten but all we know is numbers one to 10.
There's not many relief teachers at our school. We get split to another class a lot of the time when teachers are away. Year 5 has people that come up to us when their teacher is away. They really can't do much. There's this worksheet book that they have to complete. It's really boring.
A couple of years ago the roof in the year 5 classroom leaked. They were learning in the library instead. Then the roof leaked again about a year later and all the stuff, like pencil cases and everything, got covered in water. We had to chuck everything out. I remember it smelt really bad.
In the toilets there is a wall of poo art. It doesn't seem to get cleaned. There's a hole in one toilet door where the lock should be.
There's meant to be a phone ban at school but not many people follow the rules. The rule is at the start of the day you bring your phone in and give it to the teachers and at the end of the day you grab it back. I think maybe two people do that but everyone keeps their phone in their bags.
One time when we were doing practice for a concert, two or three people went to the toilets and grabbed their phones so they can watch TikTok and do stuff like that because they don't want to learn the dance. And then a whole bunch of people in my year got caught using their phones in the toilets at recess and lunch and posting like videos of them, just doing dances and stuff in the bathrooms.
The social media ban doesn't do anything. It doesn't really work. Anyone can make a social media account.
For people with special needs and heavy autism and ADHD, so they can't focus in class, they go to the learning HQ area. There's security key cards to get in everywhere, and it's all fenced off and it's quite small. There's no open grass area for where they can play. They try to include some of them with the mainstream classes, the children who aren't going to hit other people and stuff.
There are a few people in my year, maybe five or 10, whose parents give them option to go to school. I have a friend who sometimes says to his parents he doesn't want to go to school, and they say, "Okay, you can do some weeding or garden work and you don't go to school".
Another boy, he can say to his parents he wants to stay home and play Fortnite, and he doesn't go to school that day. And then there's another one of my friends, he just says to his parents he doesn't want to go to school and he just fakes being sick, but like he's not even sick, and he just doesn't go to school. A lot of people do it.
One day there was like 25 kids away, and the teachers didn't want to do the writing and novel studies and stuff like that because they would have to catch up too many people. The teachers don't say when assessments or rostrum public speaking is on because heaps of people will stay home.
Our parents get notes about when to keep kids home, like if they are sick or have head lice, but they don't get any messages about coming to school.
We have two playgrounds, one for the seniors and one for the juniors. They're not the best playgrounds, but I guess it's like the best that they could get for a public school. And there's an oval, but they kicked us off it because they want the grass to grow back, so we can't play games on it. There's two half basketball courts for the seniors and handball courts.
We used to have PE lessons but the PE teacher became an executive teacher and so there's no PE class. We go out for five minutes for a game or sometimes at the end of the day on a Friday they might let us go out for a 20-minute game but it's not that much compared to what it used to be.
There's the School Representative Council who organise book day, dress-up days and movie days. There's a lot of sporting opportunities that you can do. There's basketball, cricket, all of those kind of sports. I play soccer at school.
I have a friend and he only has one parent, and his mum's a cleaner, so they don't have very much money. He doesn't play any sports and stuff like that, and he doesn't have many things at home.
My other friend, he's pretty good at soccer, but he's never been able to play at a higher level because his mum can't get him to the opportunities, and he doesn't know what opportunities are.
We have assemblies in the hall every fortnight. The hall is either stinking hot in summer or freezing cold in winter. We stand up and sing the school anthem and the national anthem. There are musical and drama acts. Then we have the principal's awards. It's a decently big hall but there's no air-conditioning.
There are principal's awards at the assembly, but they have to give it to every student by the end of the year. Apparently next year they're going to make it so it's you have to actually do something good. You're not guaranteed to get one.
If you do the wrong thing, you can get a yellow card which is like a reminder.
And if you get three yellows in a week, you get a pink, which is a review session where you go up and spend like half the break on reflection but it's more like there's one teacher and he like gets really angry and stuff and then you go back out to play for the rest of the break. You can also get a blue and purple card.
They try to teach us like a lot about anti-bullying and online bullying and all of those kind of things. It helps to an extent, probably, but I don't think it's going to stop it.
I've done some of the Menslink courses and they've been good. There was one about things that men should do that are like good things to do and like gentlemanly things to do. The one we're doing right now is about good behaviours and leadership.
I'm excited to go to St Mary MacKillop College next year. We went to a year 6 try day. The oval was massive. It was enough for a lot of games. And then there was the hall that you can go into and you can play soccer in there and futsal and basketball and handball.
We got to see some of the fun subjects they do. We had chocolate chip cookies and a sausage sizzle for lunch. They seem to have more money there compared to Stromlo High School.
I often feel bored at school. My favourite part of the school day is probably break time and the bell at the end of the day. We're still kind of learning the same thing from year 5 to now. It's pretty repetitive so it gets drilled into our brains so we know it.
I wish there were some different ways of teaching. Every day we are doing the same thing so it gets kind of boring and people don't really pay attention. But I feel like if there's maybe one day it's just the normal routine, but then another day we learn outside and we can do a game while we're learning or something to make it more interesting. That way it's not just sitting inside all the time and it's more fun.
