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Respectful Relationship

Miss Carly Epskamp

Welcome to this update of Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR). In this edition, I will be providing a summary of the curriculum across all year levels from Foundation to Year Six.

 

The RRRR learning materials cover eight topics of Social and Emotional Learning across all levels of Primary and Secondary Education. The eight topics are a follows:

  1. Emotional Literacy
  2. Personal Strengths
  3. Positive Coping
  4. Problem Solving
  5. Stress Management
  6. Help Seeking
  7. Gender and Identity 
  8. Positive Gender Relations

Please find below more information on each of the topics.

 

TOPIC ONE: EMOTIONAL LITERACY 

Emotional literacy can be defined as the ability to understand ourselves and other people. It includes the ability to understand, express and manage our own emotions, build empathy, and to respond appropriately to the emotions of others. Building a large vocabulary for emotions helps to increase emotional literacy and build self-awareness and empathy for others.

 

TOPIC TWO: PERSONAL STRENGTHS

Children and young people need a vocabulary to help them recognise and understand strengths and positive qualities in themselves and others. This topic provides learning activities to build this vocabulary and to use it when discussing personal, social and ethical challenges. Research in the field of positive psychology emphasises the importance of identifying and using individual strengths. Social and emotional learning programs which use strength based approaches promote student wellbeing, positive behaviour and academic achievement.

 

TOPIC THREE: POSITIVE COPING

Learning activities in this topic provide opportunities for students to identify and discuss different types of coping strategies. When children and young people develop a language around coping, they are more likely to be able to understand and deliberately utilise a range of productive coping strategies and diminish their use of unproductive coping strategies. Students learn to extend their repertoire of coping strategies and benefit from critical reflecting on their own choices and being exposed to alternative options. Activities introduce students to the concept of self-talk and practice using positive selftalk to approach and manage challenging situations. Positive self-talk is a key strategy for coping with negative thoughts, emotions and events. It is associated with greater persistence in the face of challenge, and can be learnt or strengthened through practice.

 

TOPIC FOUR: PROBLEM SOLVING     

Problem-solving skills are an important part of the coping repertoire. The classroom program provides a number of learning activities to develop students’ problem-solving skills. The activities in the program assist students to develop their critical and creative thinking skills, and to apply them to scenarios exploring personal, social and ethical dilemmas.

 

TOPIC FIVE: STRESS MANAGEMENT

Children and young people experience a range of personal, social and work related stressors in their everyday lives. Activities within this topic have an explicit focus on teaching positive approaches to stress management. Assisting students to recognise their personal signs and symptoms of stress, and to develop strategies that will help them deal with stress effectively, will help students cope with future challenges. The activities focus on ways in which self calming strategies can be used to manage stressful situations.   

 

TOPIC SIX: HELP SEEKING

Learning activities in this topic area are designed to help students discuss the importance of seeking help and providing peer support when dealing with problems that are too big to solve alone. This helps to normalise and destigmatise help seeking behaviour. Scenario based activities help students identify situations in which help should be sought, identify trusted sources of help and practise seeking help from peers and adults. 

 

TOPIC SEVEN: GENDER AND IDENTITY

Learning activities within this topic assist students in challenging stereotypes and critique the influence of gender norms on attitudes and behaviour. They learn about key issues relating to human rights and gender identity and focus on the importance of respect within relationships. The activities promote respect for diversity and difference. 

 

TOPIC EIGHT: POSITIVE GENDER RELATIONS

Learning activities within this topic focus on building an understanding of the effects of gender based violence and focus on the standards associated with respectful relationships. Students develop the skills needed to solve problems, set boundaries within relationships and play an active role in the prevention of gender based violence. They develop peer support and help seeking skills that can be applied in response to situations involving gender based violence in family, peer, community or on line relationships.