Building Resilience at Lydd Primary School

Workshop for parents and carers – Thursday 12^th May 2022

Refreshments at 8.40 am / Workshop 9.00 – 10.00 am

I am writing to inform you of some ongoing work we are doing here at Lydd Primary School to build pupils’ resilience and to invite you to a workshop on the theme of resilience so you can find out ways you can help at home. From 8.40am please come along and join us in the Hall for refreshments and then a short presentation about the Resilience project. Myself and the FLO will be there to answer any questions you might have about how we can work together to build resilience and support emotional wellbeing.  

As a school we have become aware of how being resilient really aids pupils to achieve their best academically and ensures they are ready to cope with the ups and downs that life will undoubtedly throw at them in the future, including dealing with online safety.  The most successful individuals are generally very resilient people.

One way that we have been looking to help pupils, which parents could also do at home, is to ensure that we are modelling resilient behaviour ourselves.  Pupils will take their lead from how adults respond to situations and deal with minor things going wrong, so as a group we have been thinking about the example we set here at school in these situations and the message that sends to our pupils.

Understanding that making mistakes is OK and that we can learn from them is also a big part of becoming more resilient.  Here at Lydd Primary we have been encouraging pupils to take risks with their learning, make mistakes and use these mistakes as learning opportunities.  As adults we may have grown up in contexts where making mistakes was, at times, frowned upon, though actually it is through making mistakes that we learn best.

We are emphasising to the pupils that while it is good to know things and be correct, anytime that mistakes are made is a real opportunity to learn and move forward.  Again, we feel this is something parents could help model at home, particularly when dealing with homework or discussing school work or assessment marks.

Finally, humour is another important and often overlooked factor in resilient individuals.  Resilient people can laugh at themselves and not take themselves too seriously.  Again being a role model both here at school and at home can help in this regard.  Can we laugh at ourselves when things go wrong?  If so, we can expect that the children here at Lydd Primary are much more likely to be able to do this themselves and will be more resilient as a result.

If you would like to find out more about this project and discover ways you can promote resilience at home, please come along to our Resilience Workshop on Thursday 12^th May. The workshop will start at 9am but refreshments will be available from 8.40am.   

I greatly appreciate your support in this important regard as we look to best prepare our pupils for their future and if you can make it to the workshop on Thursday 12^th May, we look forward to seeing you there!