Forging lasting bonds

Better conversations sit at the heart of better relationships.

A group of Year 10 students enhanced their communication skills in an HPE elective this term. They learned to build rapport, ask more open questions and show genuine interest as they listened for both detail and emotion.

The Year 10 boys practised these skills by meeting weekly with a Year 5 boy who wanted to work on one of his personal learning goals.

The students also focused on leveraging their character strengths and built an awareness of overplayed and underplayed strengths, for example, kindness can become intrusiveness if exaggerated or indifference if absent.

Over a span of three weeks, the Year 10 boys not only coached the younger students but also forged strong relationships in the process.

One Year 5 boy approached me in the yard last week and asked when he would be meeting his Year 10 coach again. He wanted to tell him that he had met his goal and had achieved his handwriting proficiency.

Brent Brickhill
Instructional Coach & Student Coaching, Junior School