"Healthy and positive friendships set young people up for success."

Rory and Tamatea from Attitude Education have been working at Breens over the last few weeks.  They presented to our whole school and worked in our teams.  The topic was called "Friendship Factor".

In Māpuna Rory worked with us. He talked to us about how to make friends, and what it takes to be a good friend. As well as talking to us about how to create stronger bonds with people.

He taught some activities to help us make stronger friendships like trusting each other, remembering names and in classes whispering to each other in our class line to see who could work together the fastest. It was very fun. The games helped us to understand the power of friendship and trusting one another. 

 Rory helped us understand new ways to communicate with each other and let us have fun together as a group. By the time we were finished with the games we knew more people that we would be surrounded by and knew most names of people in the block. In the classrooms and throughout the school people were bonding and creating more friends already and we're excited to meet new people.

The workshop was all about working together and making new friends at once, by playing games, working together as a team and trusting people that you don’t know and you never thought you would trust even if you are not friends. Rory also taught us some stories and strategies that we could use if we want to make a friend. You could ask how they are feeling, see if they want to play with you, or even have a simple conversation that could go a long way and lead into friendship. 

Rory was very helpful as he has had many experiences with friendships. He was very determined to teach us new skills, strategies and ways to be a kind person, friend and family member. People in our team really found the activities fun and enjoyed him teaching us and we found it really special and helpful with the new information that he taught us. 

Māpuna Student Leaders