Developing Resilience and Wellbeing Strategies in Our Students.

This year we have introduced Wellbeing Student Planners for all students in Grades 3, 4 ,5 & 6. These planners allow our students to focus daily on their health and wellbeing with time being provided by classroom teachers during morning meetings or end of day reflections to complete activities in their journal.

The activities have a strong focus on Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness (G.E.M.) with research suggesting that the daily practice of these three things leads to greater experiences of happiness, improvement in mental health and being able to cope better in challenging times.

The student planners allow for the practice of Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness through:

• Daily Reflections – these questions are designed to help practise G.E.M principles. Daily practise of these can lead to greater happiness.
• Wellbeing Tracker – a place for students to keep track of their daily activity/exercise and mindfulness. Both are important to assist wellbeing.
• Monthly Reflection Activity, Mindfulness & Healthy Habits pages – these pages include wellbeing activities that can enhance mental health, mindfulness activities to practise being calm, relaxed and focused and reflection activities where students plan and work on one healthy habit goal each month that promote a healthier lifestyle.

Brownlow medallist and Richmond super star Dustin Martin, along with former Australian Diamonds Captain, Caitlin Bassett, regularly practise G.E.M. A recent documentary highlighted that Dustin Martin has journaled and engaged in G.E.M. activities & reflections for 1500 days straight and attributes his sense of calm and feeling more grateful to this practise.

By providing our students with opportunities to engage in Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness activities, along with journaling and daily reflections, we are assisting them to build habits to improve their mental health, wellbeing and feelings of happiness.

If you would like to practice gratitude at home, set aside a regular time as a family to get together and have each member write down or share out loud (this is great to do when eating dinner together) three things that went well during the day and do it for 21 days.

After 21 days, the science says you start to re-wire the brain and feel more positive, grateful and happy.