The Resilience Project

The Resilience Project is an exciting new initiative at Glen Waverley Primary School in 2024 to support student wellbeing. Our school philosophy states that students are at the centre of everything we do and that everything we do is based on research and a whole school approach. To complement our ongoing commitment to student, staff, and community wellbeing we have the privilege of participating in The Resilience Project's Education Program, an evidence-based program with proven benefits to the positive mental health of our school community. 

The Resilience Project has successfully delivered wellbeing programs to over 1500 schools and early learning centers across Australia, and we are grateful to be a part of this initiative. It is committed to teaching positive mental health strategies to prevent mental ill-health and build young people’s capacity to deal with adversity. Teachers and students will engage in weekly lessons and activities around the key principles of Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness (GEM), and Emotional Literacy to build resilience. 

Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we do not have or what we want. Working on empathy helps us to identify, understand and feel what another person is feeling. Working on mindfulness gives us opportunities to develop our ability to pay attention to the present moment and our thoughts. One of the standout features of The Resilience Project's approach is the emphasis on Emotional Literacy as a foundational skill. By honing emotional literacy, individuals gain the ability to navigate and understand their emotions, providing a solid foundation for the effective practice of gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. 

This year we will embed The Resilience Project into our school’s daily practice through GEM chats. These consist of 2–5-minute activities that students can do individually or as a whole group, at different points throughout the day. They are a great way to get students thinking about GEM outside of the set lesson time and, importantly, regularly practice the strategies to improve their mental health. Students will use their journals weekly to reflect on their learnings of the GEM principals. 

We encourage all families to discuss the GEM principles at home throughout the year as this initiative becomes a major part of our whole school approach to wellbeing.