The jump from elementary school to middle school can be big, and in this article you will be able to see what the 2024-2025 6th graders think of the middle school experience at the Mendocino K-8.

When it comes to work, the sixth graders have mixed opinions about the amount of work they are getting and about the subjects they are taught. The opinions about the amount of work were somewhat mixed, with three kids saying that there was way too much work and a student named Rowan S. said this as a response to the question,”Too much it’s abusive.” While another student,  Hazel V. said the work was, ”Three thousand bajillion times better.”

Speaking of work, the homework situation definitely ramps up when you hit middle school, and the majority of the 6th graders do not enjoy it. When I was interviewing them their responses to the question of, “what do you think of the homework this year” were all along the lines of, ”Way too much.” And, ”I Hate it.” But even though they think it’s horrible, they really have it easy with only 20 minutes of reading on weeknights, a couple of math problems and even sometimes an arts and crafts project for history. While the seventh graders have to do 2 hours of reading a week and we have a lot more and harder math homework.

Even though the 6th graders moved up to middle school, they don’t think that the teachers have gotten stricter and they said that the teachers are pretty much the same as last year, or at least when it comes to handing out punishments. But when it comes to the punishments themselves, the 6th graders say that the punishments are definitely worse than in 5th grade, with one student’s response to the question, ”have the punishments gotten worse”, was, ”oh ya absolutely.” The 6th graders do think that they have more privileges though.

The 6th graders also have new classes this year and I found out what they think about them. The 6th graders’ favorite subject seems to be art class. The sixth grader’s new classes are science and history. But when I asked them if their classes were better now or last year, they said that the classes are better now.

In the end I had my final interview of the 6th grade on whether they like 5th or 6th grade better, and out of the 18 students I interviewed only 6 of them said they liked 5th grade better. In conclusion most of the 6th graders like their new classes, and they will probably have a great school year.