Whitney Beseler and Sam Korsch from The Resilience Project spent the day with Tumby Bay Area School on Thursday, November 16 to kick off the GEM Festival – a two-day celebration of the GEM principles; Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness.
Tumby Bay Area School has been participating in The Resilience Project program for the past three years and student development practitioner Paul Stoddard said it had seen the benefits firsthand.
A grant from the Foundation For Rural and Regional Renewal afforded it the opportunity to host Sam and Whitney for two student focus sessions, aimed at years 3-6 and years 7-12.
Also in attendance for the years 3-6 session were students from both Ungarra Primary School and Port Neill Primary School.
Both Sam and Whitney led students through one-hour workshops including videos, conversation, interaction and activities to learn and experience the proven benefits of GEM practices.
This also included personalised and funny videos from Resilience Project big gun Martin Heppel.
During the afternoon school staff were treated to a presentation from Whitney giving some great tips and tricks for facilitating The Resilience Project at school to the students.
Equally as valuable were additional self-care tips to ensure the school’s teachers are keeping themselves in top condition while they teach and care for students.
Also joining in this session were some Port Neill school staff.
That evening saw a parent and community session held, which was well attended.
The aims of this session were to better enable parents and community members to support students through their GEM journey away from school, and to offer some support and guidance around mental health and wellbeing strategies for students and the wider community.
“So much was learnt across the day by all that attended and the day was the perfect preparation for the GEM Festival Event to be held on the Friday,” Mr Stoddard said.
“Whitney and Sam couldn’t have been more complimentary of their Eyre Peninsula experience, and were particularly complimentary of the students from all three schools in attendance and their respectful engagement.”
