Building Resilience Programme

We are currently following a programme in assembly called ‘Building Resilience’ that has been devised by staff in schools in the City of Edinburgh to help build resilience in children. Last term we introduced this theme by looking at what resilience means and linking it to our ongoing work on Growth Mindsets.  The topics with this programme all centre around a character called Skipper, who is navigating his boat along the river of life. This week we introduced the first topic called ‘Keeping Connected’. Each topic lasts a few weeks and comes with a parent’s leaflet and suggested activities you might like to do at home – see below for more details. We will focus on this theme in school over the next few weeks. We will send out information on each new theme within this programme as we move onto it in school.

Parent and Carer Guide

In general, people with caring and positive relationships are happier, healthier and live longer. Close relationships with family and friends provide love, meaning, support, and an increase in our feelings of self-worth and our sense of belonging. Having caring and positive relationships is one of the most important factors of our ability to cope with life’s ups and downs.

During this unit, the children will be thinking about people who are special to them. They can be people we see regularly or not very often, young or old, family, friends or anyone we come into contact with in our school or our community.

Skipper helps the children to learn how to be   more resilient.  In this unit Skipper gets his boat   stuck in the reeds at night and can’t see a way   out without some help from his Back Up Team.    Skipper explains that we need to work at   building up a strong Back Up Team of people   who we trust to be there for us through the ups   and downs.

In this unit, we will be learning that:

• Relationships are important for our health and wellbeing
• Belonging to a group can be a good way to build friendships.
• Good relationships are a two way thing.

Talk it Over:

Share with your child the people who are in your Back Up Team.

Family Task:

Who is in your Back Up Team?  Create a Team Sheet of the important people in your life. What makes them special to you?

You can add drawings/photographs of each person.

Key Book: ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson