Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader

Awards, Assemblies and Resilience

“You don't learn from successes; you don't learn from awards; you don't learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that's the truth.” Jane Fonda

Dear Families,

There are three main assemblies: whole school, junior (F-2), or senior (3-6). During these assemblies some students are given an SEL Awards. These are handed out to students for a range of achievements or successes throughout the school year. Each teacher will have the chance to give about 3-4 awards to their students per term, aligning with the assembly schedule. This means about 14 or so awards for the year. So, the chances are your child may not receive an award this year. They may not receive an award next year either.

Although this may seem tough, the research says that this will build resilience. We all know that not every child will get a chance to be the captain of their sporting team. Not every child will win a trophy. They will not all win a prize at the fair (there’s an oxymoron)! They may not get the first job they apply for. But our hope is that when they do experience failure, they bounce back to keep going.

If you would like to help your child develop their resilience, here are a few ideas that you may like to try at home:

Discuss challenges in your life that you have found difficult and how you overcame these challenges.
Think about a skill that you find challenging. Come up with a plan to master that skill.
Now think about the same skill and make a plan so that you will fail to learn that skill. Can you create any more ‘plans to fail’?
Name something bad that happened to you in your past and then say something good that happened from of it, or something that you learnt.
Go on a long bike ride or walk together where you are all pushed out of your comfort zones.

“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems.” Gever Tully.

Keep failing and building your resilience.

Andy McNeilly

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader