Over the past two years, pupils and staff at St Francis Xavier Primary School have been building their emotional resilience in lots of different ways. With the support of Mrs Quinn, nine pupils from the primary 6 and 7 classes wrote this blog post  to explain what they did, and what they feel they have learned:

 

1. Discussing coping strategies – “Not to be too sad” Aleena,  “You’ve got the right to feel how you feel, you’ve got to try and move on” Samuel
2. Learning how to work better with other people – Ashleigh  “Co-operating with others helps take your mind off bad things, by learning how to work with other people, you can learn how to help them if they are going through grief.” Jenna “When we are doing group tasks together, we were learning how to work as a team and talk out loud to each other.”  Darcy “If you work better with them, they work better with you, you get a better job done.” Alicia “It helps you to know how they are feeling on the inside, so you can talk to them in a kind way. So when something happens to them, they don’t show it on the outside, but you know how they are feeling on the inside.” Samuel “Learning how to work better with people makes you more confident about telling them personal things.” Kirsten

3. Sharing their knowledge of how to cope with bullying: “Instead of taking it really, really personally, you may feel terrible on the inside but don’t show it because if they see that they’ll see that it’s hurting you and keep on doing it. So don’t show it and they’ll probably stop – they just want attention.” Lewis     “Instead of hiding it, you should tell someone about it.” Lucy,  “If you don’t speak up, it probably won’t stop, if you share your knowledge, it could make a big difference to somebody else” Alicia

4.  Exploring death rituals – “Exploring the death rituals, you realise that everybody dies and that everybody has a different way to celebrate them.” Alicia, “We looked at different ways that different religions showed death, and I really liked seeing how everybody share theirs. It was interesting that we all did much more homework than usual for this task.” Jenna

5. Developing our understanding of grief – “It’s helped me by giving me different ways to deal with it.” Lucy, “It’s helped me because I understand other people’s grief now and can support them better.” Darcy

6. Realising that death is a part of life “You can’t stop it from happening and it will happen to everyone eventually.” Aleena  “We kind of realised it more because it has to happen eventually – you can’t live forever. When we were talking in groups or as a class about people who have passed away it makes you realise that you are not the only one who’s been through it – made you see more clearly.” Jenna  “We all realise that it hurts more, you don’t realise that it hurts so bad when it’s someone who is really close.” Kirsten

7. Discussing past experiences – “We all know that no matter who you are and what you’ve done, you’ll always be remembered and loved.” Samuel