Every year, St Bernard’s Lower Primary school holds a series of sessions on building resilience to ensure that this crucial mindset remains part of the school’s core culture. Usually, these sessions are done in collaboration with our local sporting community with representatives from GABBA (basketball), GRGA (rhythmic gymnastics) and the Gibraltar Hockey Association coming into school to work with our pupils and teachers. COVID restrictions meant that this was not possible this year, however, in keeping with their resilient mindset, the staff pulled together to ensure they were still able to deliver this highly popular and valuable programme.
During sporting activities, children naturally experience success and disappointment which help them begin to confront challenges and build team spirit. The feelings and emotions that emerge are used to explore resilience within a ‘circle-time’ at the end of each PE session. These idea-generating discussions are complemented with stories during class time where book characters demonstrate resilience and the children are encouraged to reflect on how we can all handle problems and think about possible solutions.
The school motto is ‘Be Resilient’ as the whole staff feel very strongly that a resilient mindset and a ‘can-do’ attitude results in helping individuals cope with stress in a positive way. COVID has pushed families to the limit, so having clear steps to follow when things get hard helps people both young and old feel more in control of their situation and helps us deal with change and loss more effectively too.
St Bernard’s resilience steps are:
- Identify the problem
- Think about solutions
- Keep trying and never give up!
You can help your child build resilience by using the same language to help them grow into strong, confident individuals who are able to face difficulties and succeed!
