People who have the “Honesty” character strength are honest, not only to themselves, but to others as well. Being honest is about taking responsibility for your own actions and not blaming others. People who are honest are down to earth, ethical and act with integrity.

We all know how important it is to be honest when we are at home and at school. When playing games, honest people play by the rules as this makes it more fun for everyone. “Owning up” to something that you may have done, even if it was a mistake, is something that honest people do too.

At Barwon Heads PS, Honesty lies within the Mindfulness arm of our Starfish wellbeing model.

Watch “The Anthill” – What lesson did Hercules learn? How did his dishonesty effect others?

“The Emporer’s Seed” – How did the Emporer choose his successor?

(This sotry is also known as “The Empty Pot”)

Why is it important to be honest?

Can you come up with your own moral? e.g. Being honest will earn you the respect of others OR Honesty is respected.

Make a poster of your moral.

In BHPS model, Fairness is a character strength that fits within the relationships arm.

Fair means treating everyone equally and giving everyone a fair chance. Fair is when everyone has their needs met. To be fair you need to remember to treat people the way you want to be treated.

People who are fair play by the rules, they take turns and think about how their actions may affect others.

The following videos show examples of both unfairness and fairness.

At school, when playing (games and sport) and in your home, there are many examples of writtten and unwritten rules to make things fair to everyone.

Recently, some extra rules such as physical distancing have been put in place to protect many people, especially the elderly, from the caronavirus. Do you think these rules are fair?

Some more examples of unwritten rules are; in my home, people take their shoes off before they come inside if they are muddy or wet so as not to dirty the floors. Another understanding is that we take it in turns to wash the dishes after dinner.

In the classroom, students know to put their hands up if they want to speak as it’s unfair to the teacher and their classmates if they call out.

Can you list some rules, or understandings that you can think of that make things fair? Why do we have these understandings/rules?

This week we focus on problem solving while using the character strength – self control.

Using problem solving skills can help us to communicate and cooperate successfully with others. They help us maintain our friendships and solve problems with friends if they occur.

Having a range of problem-solving skills on board can enable us to cope with challenges we may face in the future. The World Health Organisation identifies problem-solving as a key skill for health. Problem solving is about being able to think critically and evaluate the consequences of various actions.

Restorative practices can be used to solve problems with friends (there is a page on this blog that you can refer to). With restorative practices, if a tricky friendship issue occurs, people are encouraged to think about what happened and how it made the people involved feel. They then have a restorative conversation to solve the problem.

With some problems, we might need to think hard about the problem then break the problem up into chunks. After that we can think about different ways that the problem could be solved

For most problems, you will feel proud if you manage to solve it on your own, but, of course, there will be times when you will need an adult to help you solve a problem, so don’t hesitate to ask if you are not sure.

This is a simple example of how people sometimes act in difficult situations.

These people stopped and asked for help before even trying to find a solution. It is more helpful to embrace challenges and work through problems instead.

I’m sure you’ll agree that “David” is an example of someone who finds it really hard to use self control to problem solve and make good decisions!

I’m sure that you have shown self control and used problem solving strategies lately, especially while you have been doing your learning at home.

Can you think of an example? I bet you gave it a go and used some problem solving strategies, unlike the people on the elevator!

Draw your example as a cartoon, and show the steps you used to solve the problem.