Resilience, Rights, and Respectful Relationships

At Essendon North Primary School, supporting our students’ wellbeing is just as important as supporting their learning. When children feel safe, valued, and connected, they are more confident, resilient, and ready to learn. One of the programs that helps us build this supportive environment is Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR).

Respectful Relationships is a Victorian Government initiative designed to promote respect, equality, and inclusion in schools. It gives students practical tools to build healthy friendships, manage challenges, develop confidence, and understand the importance of treating others fairly. At ENPS, we believe everyone in our school community deserves to feel respected and valued. 

Developed by experts from Deakin University and the University of Melbourne, the program provides age-appropriate lesson plans and activities from Foundation to Year 12, helping students practice social skills and apply them in everyday life. The program covers eight key social and emotional learning topics:

• Topic 1: Emotional Literacy helps students recognise, understand, and use information about their own emotions and the emotions of others.

• Topic 2 : Personal and Cultural Strengths supports students to identify their own and others’ strengths and positive qualities, and understand how family and cultural values shape respectful behaviour.

• Topic 3: Positive Coping helps students reflect on their coping strategies and develop a range of positive approaches to manage challenges.

• Topic 4: Problem-solving teaches techniques to manage personal, social, and ethical dilemmas.

• Topic 5: Stress Management supports students to understand the causes of stress and develop strategies to regulate emotions and cope with stressful situations.

• Topic 6: Help-seeking builds skills for peer support, referral, and seeking help when needed.

• Topic 7: Gender Norms and Stereotypes encourages students to consider how gender norms influence attitudes and behaviour, and promotes inclusion and respect for all genders.

• Topic 8: Positive Gender Relationships helps students develop an age-appropriate understanding of safe and unsafe behaviours, consent, and violence.

At ENPS, students from Foundation to Year Six participate in weekly RRRR lessons during dedicated Wellbeing time. Each year level focuses on different topics at various points in the year, depending on what is most relevant for their students. 

This term, our students have been exploring Emotional Literacy, Personal and Cultural Strengths, and Positive Coping, with our Year Five students also focusing on Stress Management as they prepare for NAPLAN testing.

If you’d like to learn more about RRRR, please speak with your child’s classroom teacher or myself. You can also visit the Victorian Government’s Respectful Relationships webpage for further information.

Serena Walker

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader