From Year 7
Year 7 and Year 10 Leadership in the Mercy Tutor Program
This term has seen the launch of something pretty special at St Aloysius, the Mercy Tutor Program, a brand new initiative connecting our Year 7s with Year 10s for shared learning, leadership and the occasional snack break. After the roaring success of the Peer Mentor Program earlier in the year, where some Year 7s were practically begging to spend more time with the Year 10s, the idea to expand this partnership came to life.
The program is part of the new Year 10 Mercy in Action initiative, giving students a genuine chance to serve their school community by actually doing something useful, not just re stacking chairs or collecting laptops at the end of class. Each Wednesday afternoon, our Year 10s volunteer their time as peer tutors, working side by side with Year 7s in a calm, cosy classroom environment where learning is relaxed but actually productive.
Year 7s and 10s have worked across all the core subjects, including English, Maths, Science and Humanities. Tutoring sessions have included everything from practising speeches and building study planners to revising for science tests and even creating ancient Greek pottery. And while the Year 10s do offer great homework help, the real magic is the way they encourage, reassure and share insider wisdom from back when they were in Year 7, which was not too long ago.
For the Year 7s, it is more than just getting help on persuasive writing or fractions. It is having an older student in their corner, someone who gets it. Someone who knows the struggle of remembering a locker code or the pain of losing your blazer in Week 2.
For the Year 10 tutors, it is leadership in real time. They get to practice empathy, problem solving and the art of explaining math to a twelve year old. It is not just tutoring, it is learning how to be someone others look up to, both literally and figuratively.
The program, created and led by Miss Vines, is a brilliant example of our Mercy values in action, showing compassion, service and the underrated skill of learning from each other. We are proud of both year levels for embracing this initiative with such enthusiasm, patience and good humour.
In true Mercy fashion, it turns out there really is nothing more powerful than students helping students, one worksheet, one laugh and one I finally get it moment at a time.
As we year 10s embark on this journey with tutoring the year 7s, as the Fallon house, our goal is to further open opportunities for education. By doing this, we initially created a survey to ask the year 7s about their current learning habits so we could recognise what we needed to work on with them. Following this, we created learning resources like posters to engage them in case it is needed. Tutoring the students were challenging at the beginning since they lacked the intrinsic motivation but as we fostered a closer connection with them, it became easier to aid them in engaging with their work, helping them to learn effectively! All in all, it was a good experience that benefited both the year 7s and us as year 10 mentors.
Erika Binuya and Charlotte Akers – Year 10 Students
The Year 10 students have been very easy to approach and very friendly. They explained the work in a simple and clear way, spending extra time to make sure we understood what we were learning. They were always willing to help us when the teacher was busy helping us to use our time more efficiently. They supported me in overcoming any challenges I faced which made my learning more productive. I learnt a lot in just one session thanks to a Year 10 student who was committed to helping me understand the content that we were learning in class. I would definitely look forward to having the Year tens help again as they made a big difference in my learning.
Christopher Alfred – Year 7 Student
Jordan Miller
Year 7 Leader