Content: What's the Buzz? for
Primary Students (revised edition, 2019)

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Lesson 1: Meeting people and exiting

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Lesson 1: Meeting people and exiting

Archie's story; "Slow down, Archie!"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

The skills required to successfully greet, and farewell others are intricate, layered, personal and critical. Consequently, meeting people isn't as easy as it appears on the surface, but when it's done with warmth and poise it can enrich a first encounter or friendship. This makes explicitly teaching young people how to offer a friendly greeting and goodbye a valuable lesson.

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Lesson 2: Seeking attention

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Lesson 2: Seeking attention

Archie's story; "What's with Joanna?"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson recognises that everyone needs to feel as though they are noticed, valued and belong. In other words, it is natural to seek attention from others. Sometimes this need to connect is sought clumsily, by seeking attention in dominating and demanding ways. Let's explore the art of getting attention from a friendly or empathic perspective. The lesson teaches students to develop a sensitivity about every interaction with another. It is an opportunity to either build a relationship or turn others off. It's also vital young people learn how to understand and respond to a peer who is seeking attention in negative ways.

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Lesson 3: Peer pressure; when to follow and when to go your own way

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Lesson 3: Peer pressure; when to follow and when to go your own way

Archie's story; "We thought you were better than this"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson encourages young people to think for themselves, especially in situations where their friends have plans, they are not comfortable with. Not succumbing to the pressure of peers is rarely easy, but the emotional strength and skills to be an independent thinker are vital. This lesson aims to highlight and address these very skills at a time when peer pressures are emerging.

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Lesson 4: Being Friendly

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Lesson 4: Being Friendly

Archie's story; "We owe it to Kelvin ..."

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson highlights the skills required to present ourselves in friendly ways, and how to recognise friendly behaviours in others. The reason for teaching friendly behaviours is that human beings are wired to look for safe, welcoming connections. As well, sociability tends to bring out the better nature of others. Friendliness is contagious because it influences them to be friendlier.

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Lesson 5: Competition; winning and losing with style

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Lesson 5: Competition; winning and losing with style

Archie's story; "Archie! You need to get back here and be a good sport"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson reviews the essential information about competition and the inevitability of winning and losing. It takes students to see beyond winning, being first or being the best, to developing an awareness about how every interaction is an opportunity to build a relationship. It shows how an over focus on competition and winning can erode respect and cause conflict. Students are led to explore practical ideas about what to say and do following a win or a loss. The overriding goal is to connect with others and enjoy the moment.

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Lesson 6: Feelings; yours, mine and everyone's

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Lesson 6: Feelings; yours, mine and everyone's

Archie's story; "Don't tell me how to feel"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson is the first of four with an emphasis on feelings. It aims to help students identify their own feelings and the feelings of others. It teaches young people to grow an awareness by better predicting situations when a rush of feelings is inevitable. As well, we explore the idea that when we're forced to process too many feelings too quickly, the chance of becoming overwhelmed, then melting down or blowing up becomes high.

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Lesson 7: Feelings and the warning signs

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Lesson 7: Feelings and the warning signs

Archie's story; "What does he mean by get your mind right?"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson draws attention to the physiological aspect of feelings. The goal is to help students develop greater self-awareness about the links between how they are feeling emotionally and how they impact physically. As students come to grips with the physiological part of emotion, they will be better placed to regulate their emotions more constructively through problematic situations. One of the most powerful benefits arising from this lesson are opportunities to talk and listen to others about their warning signs. This sharing helps to validate feelings that are easily overlooked or misunderstood.

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Lesson 8: Feelings and thinking positively

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Lesson 8: Feelings and thinking positively

Archie's story; "My brave friend, hey?"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This third lesson about feelings focuses on the value of making positive choices as a healthy response to the many and varied emotional situations we experience. It highlights the power of thinking positively, optimistic self-talk and ideas to stay in this productive space. It alerts students to understand the destructive nature of negative thinking, negative self-talk and how to switch away from it.

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Lesson 9: Feelings and Wellbeing

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Lesson 9: Feelings and Wellbeing

Archie's story; "... being in a mindful moment"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This fourth lesson about feelings offers ways for young people to take care of their emotional health. We present a collection of 'Mindfulness moments' to students that will help to underpin their wellbeing. The idea is for participants to identify a few activities they might incorporate into their lives to recuperate, boost their coping skills and manage life-stresses more effectively. As students learn to better manage their wellbeing, the risk of storing worries and frustrations, then suddenly exploding or imploding, is minimised. Finding ways to de-stress by enjoying a few deliberately crafted moments helps all of us to meet life's many challenges with greater composure.

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Lesson 10: Empathy

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Lesson 10: Empathy

Archie's story; "Did you think about us?"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson examines the ultimate in human kindness; the act of empathy. That is, how to respond to the emotional needs of others. To show this deeper level of care, two vital elements must occur. The first is to find a way to acknowledge how the other person is feeling. This validates what they are experiencing and reassures them they are cared for. Second, something should be said or done that eases that person's difficulty or gives them hope. The definitive goal is to be emotionally available for another.

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Lesson 11: Anxiety - name it and work with it

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Lesson 11: Anxiety - name it and work with it

Archie's story; "... behind every smiling selfie could be someone with anxiety"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

In this lesson our focus is twofold. First, it is to teach students that anxiety, providing it is within healthy limits, is normal as it helps us to make sense of our world. Second, most of us do much better when we learn to understand our anxious patterns and how to work with them. To do this we equip children with a few practical tools; an understanding about anxiety and why it happens, controlled breathing, progressive muscle relaxation and fast tapping to arrest anxious feelings and take back control.

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Lesson 12: Handling Disappointment

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Lesson 12: Handling Disappointment

Archie's story; "We're going to Italy for Christmas"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

The purpose of this lesson is to explore disappointment and how-to best deal with it. Students will learn that disappointment is inevitable. It's part of living, everyone experiences it and it always passes. Disappointment happens when things do not go our way, happen unexpectedly, or do not go to plan. Interestingly we can be disappointed in ourselves, disappointed in another, disappointed for another or disappointed about a situation. The best way to deal with disappointment is to use an optimistic style of thinking and share our disappointed feelings with those we trust. Thinking with optimism and gratitude provides the best framework for handling disappointment gracefully.

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Lesson 13: Bullying and bullying-styled behaviours; dealing with them

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Lesson 13: Bullying and bullying-styled behaviours; dealing with them

Archie's story; "Raif! I've been looking for you!"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

The intention of this lesson is to help students understand what bullying and bullying-styled behaviours are and what to do when they are faced with them directly, or as a bystander. Students will learn that it is everyone's responsibility to care for each other because bullying and bullying-styled behaviours can cause deep physical and psychological harm. Anyone involved, even the bullies themselves, need ongoing education, counselling, monitoring and support.

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Lesson 14: The connecting 'ART' of conversation

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Lesson 14: The connecting 'ART' of conversation

Archie's story; "You used a trick, didn't you?"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson contains the essential tips to develop quality conversational skills. It also reassures participants that conversational skills may look easy, but the truth is a good conversationalist relies on using a series of small, intricate skills. These include looking and listening, reading body language, judging interest, timing, physical proximity, appropriate topic selection, conversation connecting abilities, compromise, assertiveness and confidence. With so many skills linked to quality conversation, it is not surprising that the ART of conversation takes practice and a while to master.

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Lesson 15: Self-awareness, building emotional intelligence and identity

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Lesson 15: Self-awareness, building emotional intelligence and identity

Archie's story; "It takes courage to look inside ourselves"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

It appears human beings are the only creatures on Earth with a metacognitive capacity; a core ability to think about our thinking, learn about our own emotional reactions and then adjust our behaviour. When children are given opportunities to examine their thinking, the thinking of others, ponder on how they fit into the world and contemplate where their individual differences lie, they gradually become more self-aware. Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence. The consequence of developing our self-awareness is to learn who we are, what we stand for, where our strengths lie, the depth of our flexibility and being in-tune with the feelings of others.

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Lesson 16: The value of giving encouraging feedback

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Lesson 16: The value of giving encouraging feedback

Archie's story; "I must get better at catching your good and say something about it"

Key social and emotional principles (learning intention)

This lesson examines what friendly feedback and 'character compliments' are. How to deliver and receive them with friendliness, humility and truthfulness, and where their value lies. The lesson also alerts young people that this style of feedback can be used to start a conversation, to show someone appreciation and has the scope to build loyalty in an established friendship. This set of skills adds a valuable layer of social connections and is actually the icing on the cake.