This term in Year 4 we have been working on The Resilience Project, which was set up by a primary school teacher, Mr Hugh van Cuylenburg in 2008, after he spent a few months living and volunteering in the far north of India.  

The overarching aim of The Resilience Project is to teach us positive strategies to help build happiness and resilience, something we all need after the last couple of challenging years. The key principles of this program focus on Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness, which complements what we do every day here at St Catherine’s in relation to our values Empathy, Curiosity, Perseverance, Integrity and Gratitude. 

So far, the work we have undertaken in Year 4 as part of The Resilience Project has supported the learning we do in Health, as we further develop our knowledge, understanding and skills of how to build and maintain respectful relationships. It also helps us as we learn how the personal and social factors we encounter support and contribute to our emotional responses in varying situations. This is giving us the opportunity to have a greater understanding of how to interact positively with others at these times. 

When we started this program, we decided to undertake one of the challenges set by The Resilience Project Founder. So, for 21 days, we took on the #DIS challenge. This required us to make time every day to stop and notice something that had gone well or something we were grateful for. The aim of this challenge was to help us shift our mindset to focusing on the positives rather than allowing negative thoughts to consume us. 

We really loved taking part in this challenge and many of our girls have reflected on the positive changes they have noticed in themselves. Here are some of their reflections: 

For anyone interested in trying the #DIS challenge you can access the video from The Resilience Project via the thumbnail above.