Wellbeing
St Joseph the Worker Primary School
RRRR: Building Resilience and Respectful Relationships
Throughout 2026, our students have been engaging in Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) learning through our weekly Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons.
This learning is an important part of supporting children to understand themselves, build positive relationships, manage emotions and challenges, solve problems, seek help and develop the skills they need to thrive at school and beyond. These are skills that require ongoing teaching, modelling and practice, and our SEL lessons provide a regular opportunity for students to develop and apply them in age-appropriate ways.
RRRR is aligned with the Victorian Curriculum and forms part of the curriculum that schools are required to teach. Our teachers carefully consider the age, developmental needs and context of our students when planning and delivering this learning.
At St Joseph the Worker, our Catholic identity and values remain at the centre of how we teach RRRR. We believe every person is created in the image and likeness of God and has inherent dignity and worth. We are also created for relationship - with God, with one another and within our wider community. This shapes how we approach learning about relationships, respect, compassion, responsibility and wellbeing, supporting students to recognise their own dignity and the dignity of others, build respectful relationships, make thoughtful choices, seek help when needed and take responsibility for their actions.
Continuing to strengthen our approach
This term, as part of our ongoing commitment to providing high-quality, age-appropriate respectful relationships education, I will be participating in a professional learning event hosted by Australian Catholic University (ACU) in partnership with the Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA), Created for Respectful Relationships: A pastoral vision for Consent and Respectful Relationships Education in Catholic schools.
This professional learning will provide an opportunity to deepen our understanding of respectful relationships education within a Catholic context and explore current research and theological perspectives relating to dignity, relationships, agency, responsibility, consent and the wellbeing of children and young people.
The event will also provide access to emerging resources from the ACU research project, bringing contemporary research together with a Catholic understanding of the human person and our call to live in respectful and caring relationships. This learning will help inform the ongoing development of RRRR and SEL at St Joseph the Worker.
RRRR is one part of our broader approach to student wellbeing, alongside our school values, Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) and other Social and Emotional Learning practices. Together, these approaches help us create a school culture where children feel safe, respected, heard and supported, while developing the knowledge, skills and values they need to build healthy, respectful and positive relationships with others.
Kind regards,
Jane Manton
Engagement Leader
Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader | PBL Coach