Bonding With Your Buddy

In the Hopkinton School District, students are paired with other students in grades below or above. In a special program, the third graders get paired up with sixth graders to do activities together. We do this for a few reasons.

A little background knowledge will help you to understand the first reason. The Hopkinton School District is made up of three schools. Harold Martin School has grades preschool through third grade. Maple Street School has grades four through six, and the Middle/High School has grades seven through twelve. The transitions between schools can sometime be difficult, so pairing the sixth graders with the third graders helps that transition. The third graders get used to the halls, along with the teachers.

The second reason is that six years from now, the same sixth graders will be seniors in high school and the third graders will be freshmen in high school. The seniors in high school don't pay too much attention to the freshmen. However, if the seniors realize that one of the freshmen was once their third grade buddy, they might be a little more welcoming and pay more positive attention to them.

The first time the students meet their assigned buddy, the sixth graders go to Harold Martin. And for them, it's kind of like a walk down memory lane. They might see some of their old teachers, and will definitely see the old classrooms. Once you meet your buddy, the third grade teachers have you do an activity. Later, you eat snack and then go out to the playground.

Only the first two times do the sixth graders go to Harold Martin. The next two times, the third graders come up to Maple Street. At Maple Street, in sixth grade, each subject only has one teacher. The subjects they teach are Literacy, Science, Social Studies and Math. Students get a schedule and use that on a daily basis. Students have different classmates in each class and go into the four different classrooms throughout their day. This is very new to the third graders, though, luckily, they won't have to transition to this for a few years.

The buddy system is a very fun and popular program, that kids in both grades enjoy.