Big boost to teaching kids about resilience

A generous donation from the Harvey Primary School P&C will go towards helping students build lifelong resilience.

Over the past six months the committee has been busy fundraising with free dress days, sausage sizzles and movie nights to raise $4000 which will pay for the Best Program 4 Kids, Highway Heroes program.

The program uses the metaphor of the highway of life. To be a highway hero, students need to keep their fuel tank full of resilience.

“Everyone experiences adversities, little bumps and big hazards,” associate principal Melanie Purcell said. “The program teaches students to slow down and think about what they need to do in order to continue their journey on the highway.

It’s a whole school approach to social and emotional learning and resilience, which you need in order to be able to move through life.”

The program will be taught throughout the year and is made up of four modules, each containing five lessons.

“Each lesson is based on role play and involves a lot of discussion between the students and a rich dialogue,” Ms Purcell said.

“The school recognised the need to increase the social and emotional resilience of the students, so when we came across Highway Heroes we felt it was the right fit.”

P&C secretary Narelle Bacich stressed the importance of community input with programs like this.

“When the school came to the P&C committee and told us about this program we thought it was a great idea and jumped on board immediately,” Ms Bacich said.

“Teaching children about resilience is something that they will carry with them throughout their life, and to have the community’s support was really wonderful.”