From the Leadership Team

Stand Up – Speak Up – Shout Out  

As you know, teenagers face a range of social challenges, including peer pressure, the struggle to make connections, and the pressure to stand up for what they know is right.  

These challenges can be intensified by the messages our teenagers are being exposed to on social media, which often amplifies feelings of inadequacy or exclusion and promotes conformity to certain attitudes.  

Navigating friendships, dealing with bullying, and managing relationships can create emotional stress.  

At Endeavour, we provide our Year 7 students with a toolkit of social skills to manage these challenges and avoid stress. 

The recent Endeavour Way Day for Year 7 introduced our students to the ‘Stand Up, Speak Up, Shout Out’ traffic light system, which is designed to explicitly teach them to better recognise and respond to behaviours that cause them harm.  

In a series of small group activities, students learnt how to recognise and respond to ‘green light’ behaviours: those which cross their boundaries, push their buttons and lead to short term annoyance and frustration. 

They learnt how to make boundaries clear and stand up for themselves.  

The ‘amber light’ behaviours move into the territory of peer conflict and friendship breakdown, and our students learnt that these situations could have a longer-term impact on themselves and others. The students learnt that by speaking up, they can effectively resolve these conflicts with minimal adult mediation. 

Students also learnt to identify ‘red light’ behaviours and distinguish them from the amber behaviours: something teenagers can find difficult to do. ‘Red light’ behaviours enter the dangerous territory of bullying and harassment and require students to shout out for help so that immediate action and adult intervention can occur.  

The Endeavour Way is all about inculcating a set of values: Love, Courage, Forgiveness and Hope. It is a kind of social contract, that provides our community with a sense of unity.  

We want our students to learn to navigate social dynamics, build empathy, and foster positive relationships, so that they can grow and thrive both in and outside of the classroom. Unique pastoral programs like this one help them to achieve that.  

If your child is in Year 7, ask them to show you their Stand Up, Speak Up and Shout Out student guide. It may come in handy when you are supporting them to manage a tricky social situation.  

Louisa Mulligan 

Director of Middle Years