Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships (RRRR)
Currently at Hillsmeade Primary School we are implementing the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program across all year levels as part of our students Social and Emotional Learning. This includes eight topics covering: Emotional Literacy, Personal Strengths, Positive Coping, Problem Solving, Stress Management, Help Seeking, Gender and Identity and Positive Gender Relations. The Respectful Relationships whole- school program promotes respect and gender equality and helps students learn how to build healthy relationships. It prepares students to face challenges by developing problem-solving skills and building resilience and confidence. Everyone involved in our school community deserves to be respected, valued, and treated equally.
A whole-school approach to Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships recognises that schools are:
- A workplace where all staff should feel equally respected, safe, and valued and have equal opportunities.
- A safe place where young children can learn about gender quality and respectful relationships, in and out of the classroom.
- Our wider community can model gender equality and respectful relationships.
Small Group Wellbeing Programs at Hillsmeade
Girl Power
The Girl Power focuses on changing the culture of how students interact with each other. The program explores the themes of building positive relationships, developing empathy and communication skills whilst exploring coping techniques and empowering girls to be themselves. The program aims to get female students to be more mindful of how they think, talk and act towards each other. Within the framework, students are given specific tools to effectively problem-solve issues, to be assertive in conflict situations, and taught how to be considerate of their actions towards their peers.
Peer Mediation
The peer mediation program helps students identify issues amongst peers and teaches students skills and guidelines for resolving low-level conflicts. Mediation opens up communication channels and allows students to discuss their problems with the guidance of mediators and come to a reasonable resolution. Peer mediation is designed to contribute to a positive, caring, safe and friendly school environment. At Hillsmeade Primary School our Year 6 students undertake a full day’s training in conflict resolution, in order to support their younger students in the school yard during break times.
Breakfast Club
The School Breakfast Clubs Program is a Victorian Government initiative delivered in partnership with Foodbank Victoria. Foodbank Victoria’s role is to source and deliver a range of core foods so schools can deliver the program, while providing information and resources to support the growth of the program within each school. The School Breakfast Clubs Program enables all students at schools to enjoy a nutritious breakfast, allowing them to engage and participate fully in all the educational and social opportunities that school offers. Our school breakfast club program runs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8am- 8:45am. The program is run by wellbeing and teaching staff members alongside some Year 6 students. Our Year 6 students have completed their food handling as part of their Inquiry unit. Hillsmeade is excited to continue our ongoing and valuable relationship with the nationwide children’s charity Eat Up. Eat up continues to provide Breakfast Club and our students with supplies to promote and enhance nutritional and social improvements for all of our primary school student.
Life Skills Go
Life Skills Go is a well-being check-in platform for students to acknowledge their emotions. The platform provides real-time data and insights into students’ well-being and helps teachers understand students’ emotional state, readiness to learn and create proactive and preventative programs to help students thrive. The emotion check-in program builds students emotional literacy and self-regulation.
Koori Club
At Hillsmeade Primary School, we are proud to inclusively celebrate the cultural history, heritage, and passion of all of our students from across the globe. In conjunction with our Koori Education Support Officer, the City of Casey Aboriginal Gathering Place and our passionate Hillsmeade teaching and education support staff, Hillsmeade has developed and implemented a Koori Club. Our Koori Club is a safe, inclusive, and culturally sensitive place for all of our Indigenous students to connect and discuss culture, music, art, food, family as well as plan significant cultural events across the school. Our Koori Club provides our Indigenous students with a platform to embrace their culture and feel confident and proud to share their culture across our Hillsmeade community.
Le Mana Pasifika Project
The Le Mana Pasifika Project is delivered in partnership with local government to help respond to issues facing Pasifika Youth and their families. Hillsmeade are proud to have a strong and respectful relationship with our local Le Mana Pasifika youth workers to connect and share knowledge and resources. As a result, our Pasifika students benefit from a safe, culturally appropriate connection with lived and family experience who is relatable and available not just in the school setting but also within community for themselves and for their families.
STAR
The STAR Program is a hands-on learning program that provides students with a learning environment tailored to create a more dynamic and diverse learning experience. STAR looks at the safety, teamwork, adventure, and respect across a variety of different scenarios and locations as well as the ability to learn and reflect on how dynamic environments change and how to adapt to different circumstances. With a consistent and predictable lesson structure, our STAR students develop confidence and actively participate in a broader range of activities and skills once a week including safe and hygienic food handling, balsa wood building, manual handling, tool identification and safe tool usage and Breakfast Club stock rotation understanding. Extensive work around the personal and social skills is incorporated into the program whilst learning and improving their hands on learning projects.
These have included:
- Emotional regulation and conflict resolution
- Teamwork, sharing, collaboration and working collectively towards team goals.
- Empathetic reflections around feelings, reactions and making positive change.
- Verbal and non-verbal communication identification and meaning
- Healthy competition and the subsequent feelings around success for ourselves and for others
