BOUNCE BACK!
A Wellbeing and Resilience Program
What is the Bounce Back!
Program?
Bounce Back! Is a whole-school
social and emotional learning
program. It has been developed
to support schools and teachers
in their efforts to promote
positive mental health and
wellbeing in their students and,
in particular, enable them to act
resiliently when faced with
challenges and adversity.
Bounce Back integrates the teaching of
important social and emotional skills
within all the KLAs.
It is built on a combination of research,
cognitive behaviour theory and the use
of children’s literature to teach the key
well-being and resilience concepts.
Each unit contains a large variety of
engaging classroom activities that
include co-operative strategies
such as circle time, educational
games, music, art, drama and
contemporary culture and
technology.
Many of the activities also feature
critical and creative higher order
thinking.
LIFE THROWS THINGS AT US..
 An F for a test
 Illnesses
 Accidents
 Falling out with others
 Setbacks
 Challenges
Often we observe people who seem to be able to ‘bounce
back’ from adversity…
And others that don’t…
These days, it looks as if it is becoming harder for
young people to bounce back after setbacks.
The core features of Bounce Back!
 Bounce Back! is a long term, multi-year, wholeschool program.
 It is universal in that it is taught to all students, not
just selected students.
 Bounce Back! is taught by the class teacher due to
the nature of relationships formed.
 It uses a multi-strategic approach, focussing on
different aspects of social and emotional learning,
and on both the promotion of positive behaviour
and the reduction of anti-social behaviour.
 Wherever possible, the knowledge, skills and
concepts are integrated with academic content.
There are 9 units of work:
 Core values – honesty, fairness, responsibility, co-
operation, acceptance, respect and inclusiveness.
 People bouncing back – the Bounce Back acronym,
focussing on the positive, normalising instead of
personalising.
 Courage – understanding that if there is no fear there is
no courage, understanding that fear is relative, developing
skills and perceptions that lead to being more courageous
 Looking on the bright side – accepting that bad times
are temporary, being thankful for good things that happen.
 Emotions - amplifying positive emotions, understanding that how
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you THINK about something is how you FEEL about it recognising
and managing negative emotions.
Relationships – developing skills for making and keeping friends,
getting along with others and managing disagreements.
Humour - understanding that humour can assist in coping with hard
times and differentiating between humour that helps and humour that
harms.
No bullying – making bullying ‘uncool, discriminating
between bullying behaviour and other anti-social behaviour,
developing skills and attitudes which assist students to
respond adaptively to being bullied or ‘put down’, developing
skills for managing negative peer pressure and developing
skills for discouraging bullying and offering bystander
support.
Success K-2 ‘Star’, 3 & 4 ‘Champ’, 5-8 ‘Winners’. - learning
that success is largely a result of effort.
Bad times don’t last. Things always get better. Stay optimistic.
Other people can help if you talk to them. Get a reality check.
Unhelpful thinking makes you feel more upset. Think again.
Nobody is perfect – not you and not others.
Concentrate on the positives (no matter how small) and use
laughter.
Everybody experiences sadness, hurt, failure, rejection and setbacks
sometimes, not just you. They are a normal part of life. Don’t
personalise them.
Blame fairly. How much of what happened was due to you, to others
and to bad luck or circumstances?
Accept what can’t be changed (but try to change what you can
change first).
Catastrophising exaggerates your worries. Don’t believe the worst
possible picture.
Keep things in perspective. It’s only part of your life.
IMPLEMENTATION
 Some units/ideas/concepts will be covered as cross-
curriculum units. There are numerous books and videos
mentioned within the program that will be incorporated as a
literacy unit of work with ‘resilience’ as a focus.
 The program also addresses many of the outcomes in our
PD/H/PE syllabus.
 As with Focus on Reading our aim is for the whole school to
be exposed to the same concepts/language and similar
strategies.
 The ‘No Bullying’ unit will be our initial focus.
BOUNCE BACK K-2
LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THINGS
2015 unit focus
KEY POINTS
 It’s good to be positive and look for the good things
 Look for the small good bits in the bad things that happen
 Bad times don’t last. Things get better
 Don’t give up, stay hopeful
 One unhappy thing in your life doesn’t mean everything else is spoiled
too.
TEACHING/LEARNING ACTIVITIES
 Songs:
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“What a wonderful world” for listening to the words, visualising,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3yCcXgbKrE
When you’re smiling
Sunnyside up
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah
Picture books :
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good,Very Bad Day
Sam’s Sunday Dad
 Circle time - what do we mean by positive ?
 Asking positive questions :
‘Rob, what is one good thing which has happened to you today?
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‘ Carin, what have you got to look forward to tonight?
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(The ‘good things’ can be quite small.)
 One bad thing does not mean everything turns bad
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IT’S GOOD TO BE POSITIVE AND LOOK
FOR THE GOOD THINGS
A positive person
• is someone who always tries to look for the good in themselves, in
others and in what happens in their lives.
• has a happier life
• has happier feelings because they look for happy things
• is more fun to be with and people like them more and want to be
their friend
LOOK FOR THE GOOD BITS
• Sometimes things happen that you don’t like
• You can usually find something good in a situation if you try
• Sometimes the good thing is that it could have been worse
• Sometimes it’s the lesson you learned
BAD TIMES DON’T LAST
• When a bad thing happens in your life, it isn’t forever
• Bad feelings don’t last very long
• Bad feeling go away faster if you talk to someone who cares about you
STAY HOPEFUL WHEN YOU HAVE
UNHAPPY TIMES
• You will get over unhappy times in your life more easily if you stay
hopeful and look on the bright side
• Believe that good things will happen
• Don’t give up
ONE UNHAPPY THING DOESN’T MEAN
THAT EVERYTHING IS BAD.
• Try to remember all the things that are still good in you life
• It is just one thing that is going wrong, not everything
What Does Bounce Back
Mean?
Stage 1 - common
language for all.
Bounce Back provides students with practical strategies and life skills to handle challenges and adversity
encountered.
Integral to this program is establishing a common language amongst the students when talking about
resilience.
Unit 1 Values - Honesty
Multi-strategic = Student Engagement
 Read ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’
What was the lesson about being honest ?
 Circle Time – Pair Share
 Poem ‘Mr Nobody’- draw something he does
 Drama - With puppets, act out a situation where a character is tempted to be dishonest
 Activity booklet