Weekly Wellbeing 

Helping Hands

This week we launched our Helping Hands program.  So far it has been a fantastic effort.  It is wonderful to watch different students from a variety of year levels playing together. I am so happy with how interest in Helping Hands has grown throughout the week. 

Helping Hands is a new student-run leadership program for senior students.  Helping Hands members will be wearing orange vests and facilitating games and activities for any interested younger students in the wellbeing garden during Mon - Thurs recesses.  We have worked with these students to develop some leadership, conflict resolution and support skills they will be able to use as it comes up.  Our goal is to engage any students who struggle to know what to do during play times. 

We currently have 34 senior students that are part of Helping Hands, and they will be working in 9 groups of 3-5 students.  There is a wide array of games and activities each group will run, so if someone doesn't like the Helping Hands activity one day, they can come back and try the next. 

Helping Hands is in returning Term 3 for students looking for somewhere to go during recess.

Our Culture: Who We Are 

Recently I have been thinking about: 

• culture,
• who we are, 
• how we connect with each other,
• and the world around us. 

Part of my thinking has been sparked by sitting in on the Journey Tracks program for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. So much of our wellbeing is determined by knowing our purpose and identity, and it has been awesome to see students dig into their cultural background, in a program where they can be creative. 

Lately, outside of the Journey Tracks program, I have been asking some of our senior students, “If you had to describe yourself to someone else, how would you do it?” 

It is fascinating what students will and won’t include in answering that question. Generally, we may have a sense of culture and identity, but it is not always emphasised or discussed enough to explain to others.  I have noticed a lot of us (senior students I have asked included) will define ourselves by what we do and don’t like, our taste in music and movies, and sometimes we include a character strength or two.  We know there is much more to our identity than this though. 

I think this topic would be more meaningful if it was discussed, rather than read and forgotten about, so I will leave you with a question.  How do we grow our understanding, not only of ourselves, but of our connection to the world around us? 

Cheyenne Mason, on behalf of the Wellbeing Team