Wellbeing 

Resilience 

Resilience is a term used often. A term that describes an individual’s capacity to recover from difficulties.

Your years spent at secondary school can be a challenging time – homework and study pressures, boundaries coupled with growing independence, behaviour and uniform expectations, friendships and social issues, wondering what the future holds for you. In order to face and cope with these challenges, we need to call upon our resilience through exposure and persistence. Exposure to the ‘uncomfortable’, sitting with feelings of worry and concern, and persisting when it all seems too difficult. What can YOU do to improve your situation?

A close friend of mine once said ‘hard times don’t last.’ He said this to me during a particularly stressful period where I felt overwhelmed, at times quite panicked and unable to gain clarity of my situation. However, this statement resonated with me. So simple, yet so accurate. Hard times don’t last. Problems and issues in our lives will always come and go. Stressful times force us to learn about who we are and how we cope, how we build our skills to fight on and to overcome adversity.

Remind yourself of your own personal goals and priorities - what is it that you hope to achieve in your life? With goals, usually come sacrifices and hard work. Want to study at University? Then you must study consistently. Want healthy and fulfilling friendships/relationships? Then you must be open, honest and thoughtful with people. Want more money? Then you must work.

The greatest thing about life is that it’s a gift. A gift that with an expiry date. Life opens up doors and provides you with the opportunity to pursue your goals and happiness. Seek out those people who make you laugh and feel good and offer that to them in return. Draw upon your individual skills and strengths and apply them in a meaningful way. Smell the flowers you pass on your way to school, look up at the sky, know that you are never alone and always try to be grateful.

Stressful and difficult times are challenging, but in the midst of these times, remind yourself that ‘hard times don’t last’ and to be brave in confronting your fears and anxieties. By doing so, you’ll become a more content and resilient you.

Wellbeing Day - Monday 9 December 

Monday 9 December  is our Year 7-9 Wellbeing Day. It will incorporate team building games (including a Zumba dance class at lunchtime, and challenging obstacle games), Art Therapy, a Respectful Relationships workshop and a variety of presentations by Headspace and Relationships Australia. There will also be student information stands at lunchtime from Headspace and Youth ConneXions (Whitehorse City Council Youth Services). The Wellbeing team has also run a competition for Year 7-9s to design a poster for Wellbeing Day to use to promote this fantastic day.

Michael Oaten

Director of Learning: Learning Enhancement