A Year 8 Wellbeing Day was held on Wednesday 28 July - please see photos and student reflections below.

What was the day about?

On 28 July, the Year 8 students were separated into 2 groups, the boys and girls, to learn about mental health issues in Australia.

What did you learn?

We learnt about mental health in men in Australia being very low and people thinking all men are aggressive.

What was the best part?

The best part was getting to write things you like and writing nice things about your friends and peers.

Would you recommend it for future Year 8 students?

In future I would recommend that we do this again because it teaches you about the mental health problems about men.

Oz Holtom (8F)

The Year 8 Wellbeing Day was not only a bonding experience, but it taught me many great lessons. We discussed many relatable topics of teenage-hood and the typical issues you face being a young woman in today's society. Issues like sexism and misogyny, consent, stress and how to deal with it and how to maintain meaningful friendships were all discussed.

Not only did we learn how to deal with these issues, but we even put some of the strategies into practice. This helped everyone to slowly become more confident in many different social aspects. Our host, Catherine, was a very welcoming and friendly woman. She ran the workshop effortlessly throughout the day, even with the casual stops because of the fluctuating weather. She really made the workshop enjoyable for everyone participating. I would 100% recommend this for future Year 8's.

Jemmima Sansom-Gower (8B)

On Wednesday 28 July, the Year 8s had a Wellbeing Day. This was a great way to come back to school after being in remote learning and in front of a device all day. The day consisted of various workshops being given. The girls participated in a SEED workshop which was based on how media representations are inaccurate, to feel good and be happy with our bodies, how to be assertive, how to deal with stress, how to have respectful relationships with both friends and romantically, and a number of other life lessons that everyone will use now and in the future.

Catherine Manning, the CEO of SEED, presented issues to us such as the media and gender inequality and taught us how to deal with these big problems. Catherine broke the issues down and it was a real eye opener to what we don’t realise is happening to us and so many others. So many of the big problems that we talked about affected all of us and, by participating in SEED, we could see that we weren’t alone and that we are all being affected by the same issues. At the end we even said an oath and received woven bracelets to symbolise ‘all for one and one for all’. The Year 8 girls learnt that the media portrays a certain image or ‘way’ for girls to ‘act’ or ‘be’.

We then learnt strategies on how to overcome these issues as young women with strong voices. We learnt how important it is to love your body no matter what, because we are all beautiful, and we shouldn’t let anyone tell us otherwise or let our looks define us. We learnt how to maintain respectful relationships with friends and how to deal with toxic friends. We now understand it’s ok to say ‘NO’ because everything needs consent. We also learnt about strategies that we can implement to reduce stress and anxiety and how even a hug and a smile can help!

We made pouches, decorated them and filled them with key information and a piece of paper full of compliments that our friends wrote about us towards the end of the workshop. We took home our decorated pouches and bracelets as well as great new ideas, life lessons and information that we will never forget. We all highly recommend the SEED workshops to any Year 8 girls and hope they enjoy it as much as we did. Thank you so much, Catherine, the SEED team and Beaumaris Secondary Collage for giving us the opportunity to participate!

Katia Taranto (8E)

The Year 8 Wellbeing Day focused on respectful relationships. I, being a Year 8 male, joined the other boys in workshops learning about masculinity, being a good friend, gender equality, and making good relationship choices. I learned that a lot of other boys feel the same or different insecurities that I do. I also learned more about being respectful in friendships with girls and boys, and in romantic relationships. I would recommend the activities we did for future Year 8 students.

Anonymous

Wellbeing Matters

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