Peer Support

The purpose of Peer Support is to provide wellbeing that is “owned by students and led by students” (Peer Support Australia). It supports the pastoral care requirements of the college by both supporting year 7 transition into high school as well as providing ongoing leadership opportunities for our year 9 students (e.g. Year 7 Parent Welcome Evenings). The Peer Support Mentors facilitate regular contact activities intended to support the transition of year 7 students to Joseph Banks Secondary College, promoting optimism and exploring skills and aptitudes necessary to maintain friendships, develop health behaviours and grow as caring young individuals.

To become a Peer Support leader, students in year 8 are nominated by their middle school communities and train over a period of two days at the Grandis Sport’s Park Pavillion to join the program the following year.

Congratulations to our Peer Support leaders in 2024:

Welcome to Year 9 Peer Support

For almost 50 years Peer Support Australia has provided essential support to Australian schools to positively impact the wellbeing of children and young people. Healthier relationships, positive school culture and improved student wellbeing can be cultivated by:

  1. providing students with Social and Emotional knowledge and skills
  2. partnering with parents to develop a shared language for guiding students through emotional responses and interactions with others
  3. supporting teachers to value student voice; and involve students in decisions about their school and learning

To be a successful peer leader, it is important that you come to the four sessions offered each term and keep up to date with any work missed from your regular contact class. It is also important that you communicate with your peer support coordinators, leading teacher and contact teachers, if you need extra help in your role as a peer leader.

The basic structure of each session is as follows:

·         Briefing: Meet at the Discovery centre at the start of period 2. Coordinators will brief you on the topic and activity idea.

·         Facilitate activity: Peer leaders attend the allocated year 7 contact classes to run ONE activity for the year 7 class.

·         Debriefing: Return to the Discovery Centre for reflection and feedback

Well done to all our peer leaders and we wish them continued success throughout the year!