Tag Archives: Positive Education

Honesty

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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.

“I always tell the truth and show how I feel” Honesty is not just about telling the truth, it’s about living your life in a genuine and authentic way. It’s about being down to earth and without pretense. Being honest also means being ethical and acting 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 Meaning arm of our Starfish wellbeing model.

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

Thanks Mr P for sharing this one with us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvzgvaTnqek

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

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

This story also has the importance of honesty as its main message, but it is both a fiction and a non-fiction text with some interesting information about medieval times.

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.

Wisdom

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People with wisdom are wise and understand what is important in life. Having wisdom means being able to give advice and recognising different sides before making decisions.

Older people are said to be wise as they have lived through so many different experiences. People with wisdom are often understanding and have a bank of knowledge or learning from the past that they use to choose from. They think before they speak or offer advice.

Can you think of a person or a mentor who shows the Character Strength of Wisdom? What about Aesop’s fables? Can you think of any fables wherein characters display wisdom?

What have you learnt about life? What words of wisdom would you give to a student younger than you?

 

The Three Questions

Accomplishment

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The Barwon Heads Primary School PERMA defines Acccomplishment as having a “growth mindset”. This is about the beliefs that students have about their learning intelligence. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger. Therefore they put in extra time and effort, and that leads to higher achievement.

At Barwon Heads Primary School, the following statements relate to Accomplishment:

-Think positive thoughts and don’t give up

-Challenge myself

-always do the best I can

-have a growth mindset

-learning from my mistakes

-believe in myself

-achieve my personal best and not compare myself to others

-make a plan and work hard to achieve my goals.

 

 

Meaning

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At BHPS our wellbeing model now includes “Meaning”. We felt it was important to include meaning because the presence of meaning leads to greater fulfillment and, ultimately, wellbeing. People’s work, especially occupations such as teaching, that serve others, volunteering and raising children can provide a sense of purpose. Expressing gratitude, identifying your strengths, respecting our environment, taking time to reflect and understand what is important to you, helping others and living your life with integrity are all ways to live a more meaningful life.

Our wellbeing model defines “Meaning” as: I belong to a world bigger than my own and means:

  • look after and respect our environment
  • use the character strengths of positive role models
  • make decisions, ask questions and reflect on my learning and my goals
  • use my strengths in all I do
  • do things that make a positive difference
  • help others
  • contribute to developing and using our class expectations
  • confidently voice my ideas
  • recognise that I am part of a school and wider community

 

Caine’s Arcade complements quite a few of our Character Strengths and our PERMA model. How does it relate to meaning?

 

Relationships

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At Barwon Heads Primary School, “Relationships” is an important part of our PERMA wellbeing model and means: I accept, understand and empathise with others. Our positive statements relating to relationships are:

I can

  • show respect to everyone.
  • be a positive bystander
  • be a bucket filler
  • be open minded towards others and their ideas.
  • take responsibility when I make a mistake
  • forgive others
  • be kind to everyone
  • work to fix relationships
  • include others
  • care about the feelings of others

Happiness is linked with close, meaningful, friendships. Our relationships with others support positive emotions. When we have friends, and groups of friends, these relationships can spread happiness, cheer and laughter like wild fire! Just think of how much happier you are to be back at school (after remote learning) and being able to see and play with your friends again!

 

Our classic book where we use the bucket filling metaphor for filling others with kindness.

I love the kindness illustrated in this clip.

Can I join your club?

What makes a good friend?

Young kids talk about what friendship means to them

Engagement

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This week at Barwon Heads PS we will continue to unpack our PERMA wellbeing statements whilst looking at ENGAGEMENT.

Engagement means: Making the most of learning opportunities and to be successful in doing this you can:

∙ be enthusiastic towards my learning

∙ tune in to instruction and tasks

∙ use the Learning Focus and Success Criteria

∙ make the most of conferencing time with my teacher

∙ do my best to achieve flow when doing activities I enjoy most

∙ focus on my school-work

∙ follow my class and school rules

∙ think before I act or speak

∙ act with self-control in the classroom and playground

 

Thank you, Mr. Falker is a story about a girl who shows a growth mindset, persistence and engagement in her learning to achieve success with her reading – helped by her kind teacher!

Simon the Self Control Seal

Argyle Fox

Positive Emotions

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Learning to identify and express feelings in a positive way helps us all to develop the skills they need to manage them effectively.

Children who learn healthy ways to express and cope with their feelings are more likely to:

       

 

    

(Kids helpline)

which is why Positive Emotions is one of the five pillars of our school’s wellbeing model.

At Barwon Heads PS we aim to improve the wellbeing literacy of our students so that they are able to identify how they they are feeling and how others are feeling.

Our Positive Statements have been developed by teachers and students and are based on research from the science of Positive Psychology. They identify strategies that we can use to improve how we are feeling.

Positive Emotions: I use many words to express emotions.

I can….

  • notice how others are feeling
  • tell others how I am feeling
  • use positive thinking skills to improve how I feel
  • pause to clear my head and be aware
  • have lots to look forward to
  • use strategies to be calm and happy
  • think of things to be grateful for

 

Self Control and Mindfulness

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This week at Barwon Heads PS our focus Character Strength is Self Control which we are going to combine with Mindfulness.

Studies have shown that we can build self-control (or self regulation skills) by learning to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness  is the moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. There are a number of different ways in which this can be done, but being aware of how you are feeling and remembering to use the strategies that work for you to improve how you are feeling is using self control!

This is also about having a growth mindset. An important thing to remember is that these strategies should be used regularly and so that they become  habit – which is also where self-control comes in! These strategies need to be practised and not used just when things are not going as planned.

Here are some strategies to try…

Breathing: 

Flower breath-Imagine smelling a beautiful flower, breathe in through the nose and out the mouth, releasing any tension.

Bear breath – Inhale through the nose for a count of 3, pause for a count of 1 or 2; exhale out the nose for a count of 3 or 4, Pause then repeat a few times.

Take 5 breathing

My Magic Breath – to help us with mindful breathing

 

Meditation:

Meditation can be as simple as getting comfortable and being still for a few moments. I like to close my eyes and visualise a special place such as a beautiful beach that I have been to. Focus on your breath and follow your breath.

YouTube has some meditation stories for children as do the following two websites.

https://www.headspace.com/meditation/kids

https://www.smilingmind.com.au/

Physical Activity:

Physical activity can be as simple as going outside and appreciating nature or going for a walk or bike ride. Having a stretch or doing some yoga can also be good for our wellbeing.

Yoga: https://www.cosmickids.com/

Music:

Listening to music that you really love can be uplifting! Sometimes it helps to have the volume up but not loud enough to upset your neighbours!

The Lemonade Hurricane

I Am Peace

 

My Strong Mind

Your challenge this week is to try a mindfulness strategy from the list above that you haven’t used before.

If you have your own mindfulness strategy that works for you and you would like to share it, please do!

Love

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Love can mean so many different things to different people!

We all have people in our lives who care about us and who we care about in return. These people can be our parents, our family members and even our friends! Some of us love our heroes and those who have been kind to us. We love our pets and our teddy bears! Some of us love unicorns, books, our footy teams and lego.

Parents feel unconditional love towards their children and this is demonstrated by the way in which they give love, warmth and care without expecting anything in return. We love our parents in return.

To me, when you feel love towards others, you care about them.

No matter what, you’re parents will always love you as shown in “Koala Lou”

 

We can be loved and love others through kind acts such as in “Wilfred Gordon, McDonald, Partridge”

An Illustrator draws what love looks like to some kids.

I love this book, by Dallas Clayton! 🙂

 

What does love mean to you?

Make a list of things that you love.

Write a letter or a card to your mum or dad telling them the things that you love about them.

Tell your mum or dad that you love them!

Kindness

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Kindness is my favourite character strength and when I surveyed our class this week, guess which character strength was, by far, the most popular? You guessed right – it was kindness.

We never forget when someone has shown kindness towards us, but research has shown that the wellbeing benefits of being kind to others is far greater than receiving kindness!

Kindness can be as easy as smiling at someone and saying hello.

One of my favourite quotes is: “In a world where you can be anything, choose kind.”

Here are some more …

 

 

Here are a few reasons for being kind:

 Being kind feels good.  Doing something for someone else really does make us feel good.  Just as running releases endorphins, so does kindness.   Make someone smile and you’ll feel better for having done so.

Kindness broadens our perspective.  In order to be kind, we have to pay attention to what is happening around us.  As we notice more things and help others, we get a glimpse of other ways of looking at things.  A broader perspective helps us to keep things in context.

Kindness softens our heart.  When we look for kind deeds, beauty, and the opportunity for kindness, we’ll find that we are more compassionate and more tolerant.  As we practice empathy, it opens our heart to others.  

Kindness brightens our world.  When we are kind to people, it makes them happy.  The more people who experience kindness from us, the more happy people will be in our lives.  When those around us are happier, our world becomes a brighter, lighter place to live.

Kindness helps people feel respected and less alone.  By recognising someone’s need for help and acting on it in a compassionate manner, it makes the recipient feel valued.  It also makes the giver feel better about themselves and more connected.

Kindness makes people want to be around us.  One of the most common responses to kindness is gratitude.  People appreciate what we’ve done for them.  Our kindness is very attractive, so they want to be around us and actually seek us out.  

Kindness bears wonderful fruit.  Kindness begets kindness, openness, health and reduces the effects of stress on our bodies and our hearts

Kindness begets kindness.  When you are kind to others, the impact of your action doesn’t stop there.  Many times the recipient of your kindness and others who see or hear about your kindness are inspired to be kinder.  The ripples of kindness are truly endless.

Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

What is your favourite Kindness quote?

Share a kind act that you have done recently.

Share an act of kindness that inspired you to be kind to others.

Share a sneaky RAK (Random Act of Kindness) that you can do for someone else.