Year 6 Leadership Training Day

Peer Support Training

On Friday 8 February our Year 6 cohort were trained to be Peer Support Leaders for the Primary school. The students worked collaboratively in groups throughout the day to discuss many different topics to do with being an effective responsible leader. The Primary School Peer Support Program seeks to increase connections across the school through vertical groupings K-6. This allows our students to form relationships as well as develop empathy and a sense of responsibility for students which they might not typically engage with. While working within these structured groups, older students lead younger students through various planned enjoyable activities at least once per term that explore social and emotional skills focusing on optimism, resilience, values, relationships, sport and anti-bullying.

Melanie Scott

HOT&L Primary

Peer Support Report - a student perspective

On Friday in the Senior school, both 6H and 6G took part in Peer Support training. We learnt how to interact with smaller children as a leader of the Primary School and how to work with kids in situations where they are having difficulty. We also looked at how to work with peers smoothly and be eager to work with them more often.

Firstly everyone talked and got to know each other from separate classes and throughout the day discussed all of the things you would do with peers in certain situations.

We deliberated about all the things a leader should or shouldn’t do. Later on in the day, about period 3 we did more cooperative tasks and learnt how to best work together with others by making a cup stack of six with a rubber band, six pieces of string and not being able to touch the cups at all.

Beginning with a bang, the second half of Peer Support started with snakes on the line, where we had to think of the challenges and highlights that students of Kinder and Year 6 face. Then we had a rousing game of dance hoops where we had to do a dance move until Mr Gibbs called a number and that many people got into a hoop (not as easy as you think), at the end we had to do 4 push-ups because we lost. After lunch we had to think of what made a good friend and how we can deal with difficult situations.

Peer support was a great experience and we learnt a lot about being a good leader and managing challenging situations. We are looking forward to our Peer Support sessions throughout the year working with our younger students in the Primary School.

By Sophia Fraser and Scarlett Hehir