Mental Health and Wellbeing:

 Supporting Inclusion and Respectful Curiosity at School 

 Term 3

Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program (RRRR)

For the remainder of Term 3-

Foundation: Students are going to reflect on why tolerance and acceptance is important: in the classroom, in the yard, at home and in the community. They are going to revise problem solving and help seeking.

Things you can do at home: Encourage students to ask parents or extended family how they show tolerance at home and in the community.

Year 3 and 4: Students will be exploring gender norms. They will explore their identity through the lens of home, friendship, strengths, coping, school, relaxation, play and futures.

Things you can do at home: Talk with your child about their strengths, how they can grow as learners. 

Year 5 and 6: Students continue their exploration of gender norms, including how they are passed through social and cultural practices including clothing, sport and hobbies. 

Something you can do at home:

Year 1 and 2: Across the next few lesson students will be talking about what is may feel like and look like if people are mean or hurtful. They will be exposed to scenarios where children may be called mean names, hurt or left out. Students will name emotions when they see violence or if it happens to them. They will identify that the opposite of violence is respect.

Things you can do at home: Play a board game, or a card game such as Uno as a family. In the course of playing, talk about the challenges of turn taking, fair play and strategies to cope when the outcome doesn't go your way.

Year 3 and 4: Challenging Gender pressures in stories and the media

Things to do at home: How does advertisers try to sell their products to children.

Year 5 and 6: Talking about gender using inclusive language

Things to do at home: Invite students to ask you about different pressures that men and women experience in the home and in the workplace. 

Social Emotional Wellbeing Survey

During Week 8, students from Year 2 to Year 6 will undertake the Social Emotional Wellbeing (SEW) Survey. The survey was developed by Dr Michael Bernard, in collaboration with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). It explores 9 key aspects of students' social and emotional wellbeing across 3 key domains

• Feelings and Behaviours
• Internal Strengths
• External Strengths

The survey is anonymous. The purpose of the survey is to:

• identify a baseline data set to guide strategic initiatives in 2027
• use evidence to support the wellbeing needs of students in our school
• measure the data for further supports and interventions.

Further information can be found

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. 

During Term 3 our Stand Up Project Leaders will be delivering lessons to the students in Year 4, Year 3 and 2 Ramsden. Next term a new cohort of students will hear their message.

The second lesson will now be taking place during week 8. The content is below.

At St John's:

Reducing bullying is important because:

The focus of the lesson is about the difference between being a bystander and an upstander.

A bystander is someone who is present at an event but does not take part. The bystander effect occurs when a person, or group of people see that someone needs help, but don't assist. Research on the bystander effect was explored in the 1960s by John Darley and Bibb Latane. Their research is called The Smokey Room Experiment. The research suggests that when in a larger group, people will often wait for someone else to act. The larger the group watching, the less likely that help will be offered. 

An upstander is a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or a cause and intervenes on behalf of that person.

Being an upstander can sometimes be challenging, as students may fear judgement or criticism when they speak up against inappropriate behaviour. However, the benefits far outweigh the negatives, because upstanders help create safer, more inclusive environments for their peers and support those who may not have a voice and inspire others to do the right thing.

Our leaders will also be talking to their peers about the 4Ds. These are strategies to use when they see another student being treated unfairly in the classroom, in the playground or outside school hours.  See the poster below. 

Working together, we can make our school and the community a safer place for everyone. 

If you have further questions on the Stand Up Project or would like additional resources, please do not hesitate to reach out. 

Click to access past resources