Life Education Trust - Wairarapa

Hi everybody and thanks for taking the time to read the Life Education column to keep up to date on where and what Harold and I have been up to. During February and March of this year, Harold and I have been busy visiting schools around the Wairarapa & Southern Hawkes Bay. If your child has come home excited about a visit from Harold, they will have had an opportunity to build on and develop their skills on how to live a healthy lifestyle. Harold and I do this by encouraging children to support and respect each other; we help them understand that they are all unique and special, and teach them that the human body is magnificent! Our programme is made up of 19 individual modules, and all are linked to the School Curriculum; so you can be sure your kids are having their educational needs met. The modules do not necessarily work on changing childrenfs behaviour; it works on changing desires. How do we do this? By taking children on an adventure in our mobile classroom, which is equipped with sophisticated technologies to capture their imaginations and create the wow-factor. Children are like sponges in their formative years, which makes the primary years a fantastic time to raise their awareness of how incredibly awesome they are. Ultimately, our main goal is to enable children to make positive decisions about any influences that might restrict them from developing to their fullest potential. So far this year we have been busy delivering a wide range of modules, with a strong focus on Social Relationships. Peer relationships are important contributors to the quality of both children's current lives and their future development. This can be quite a challenging area for many children. There is no rule book on how to build healthy self-esteem, keep true to oneself; while still managing to maintain healthy friendships. Emotions at any age can be quite difficult to control! To help children in this area we provide educational opportunities which develop their skills. They share and are given ideas on maintaining and enriching their social relationships. They learn strategies on how to communicate with others positively, how to deal with peer pressure, bullying, and that is okay to say no. They are also look at how to make healthy choices when it comes to diet and exercise; which are linked to self-esteem.