Wellbeing

Peer Support 2019

We are excited to share some of the experiences we had during our Peer Support sessions with you. 

Throughout Semester 1, we had Peer Support sessions every Day 8. Each group consisted of two leaders from either Year 10 or 11 and about seven or eight Year 7 students mixed from each homeroom. This was a great idea because it helped us meet some more girls from different homerooms.

At the start of the program we were a bit nervous because we were in groups with people that we didn’t know well. Before the program started we felt we were not fully part of the school community, but once we started getting to know our leaders and our peers better we felt more comfortable to be with others in our school community.

In our Peer Support sessions we played many different games to help us get to know one another. Some of the activities helped us work as a team to achieve a goal, and some of them taught us a bit about each other. In one game we stood on either side of a rope depending on what we like. Cats and dogs is an example of this. If you liked dogs more you would stand on a different end of the rope to someone who liked cats. We also tried lifting a pen from the ground in a pair using one finger each, which was pretty challenging.

During the program we learned a lot about others in our school community, and we even learnt a bit about ourselves and the friendship qualities we feel are important. We practised communication skills and made new friends as we settled into life at Kilbreda.

During our last session we had a shared breakfast with the Peer Support leaders to celebrate. After breakfast we joined together in the Hall for a whole group ‘Just Dance’ session.  This last session was great fun and it was a good way to end an amazing semester.

We would both like to thank all the Peer Support leaders, Miss Smyth, who created the opportunity for us, and to Miss Flynn and Ms Grima for all their work supporting the program.  We strongly encourage the Year 9s to become peer support leaders next year so that the Year 7s of 2020 have the same opportunity.

Lola Martin and Emily Smith

Year 7