Student Wellbeing 

Minus18 Workshop

On Wednesday the 11th of May, Year 9 students participated in an interactive and engaging workshop run by Nix from Minus18, which is Australia's largest charity supporting LGBTQIA+ communities and young people. The workshop focused on introducing students to the basics of sexuality and gender identity, looking at how they can be a part of creating an inclusive and safe community for LGBTQIA+ students at Brookside. Minus18 run free in-person events and online chill out sessions for all LGBTQIA+ people and allies.

Nix shared their story to students of what exploring their sexuality was like for them and how they were sometimes perceived by others as strange or different. The biggest difference for Nix was having a community through a musical theatre group that they belonged to and felt accepted in. 

After talking about their story, Nix invited students to explore what LGBTQIA+ meant. Students were given the opportunity to consider certain stereotypes of gender expression. Students discussed how there are certain things we are encouraged to do or like based on our assigned sex at birth, which is a problem if we want to create an inclusive community that celebrates diversity. As a group Year 9s also explored various scenarios of how individuals might identify themselves based on their gender or sexuality. Overall, a key learning was that sex can be seen as relating to the body, gender relating to the brain and sexuality relating to the heart. This knowledge can help students respect and understand people from the LGBTQIA+ community. 

As Brookside endorses Respectful Relationships at school, it is important that students are supported through workshops such as these to promote a culture of respect, inclusivity, and positivity through their attitudes and behaviours at school.

Raise Mentoring

Raise Mentoring began earlier in the term for a group of Year 8s and it’s been an awesome start to the program so far! It started with an exciting ‘Jitters’ session where the group played getting-to-know-you games to shake off the nerves – students’ and mentors’ alike! This included a fun speed-dating type of game where the mentees moved in a round from one mentor to the next to get more familiar with each other and find out who they connected with. At the next session, ‘Match’, the mentees and mentors found out who they would be paired up with for the rest of the program. It’s been great to see the mentees and mentors learn more about each other and we look forward to seeing these positive connections only grow stronger and stronger throughout the year!