Coping with stress
Transition to secondary school is a daunting and stressful time for young people. Some stress can be helpful by alerting us to potential danger. However, if students are feeling overwhelmed, moody or unmotivated, they may be suffering from excessive stress. By discussing the good and bad types of stress, students will learn how to identify when they need to seek help.
Year level
Transition
Duration
20 minutes
Type
In class activity
SEL Competencies
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Learning intention
Students will learn about good and bad types of stress and explore a range of ways for reducing stress.
Key outcomes
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
discuss good and bad types of stress
identify a range of ways to reduce stress
explore the ReachOut.com website for resources.
Materials needed
Whiteboard and markers
Butcher’s paper and markers for each group
Access to the ReachOut.com article ‘Ways to chill for cheap’.
Access to the ReachOut.com YouTube clip ‘"I'm hangry" meditation’.
Mapped to
Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education
Analyse the impact of changes and transitions, and devise strategies to support themselves and others through these changes (AC9HP8P02)
Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities
Personal and Social Capability:
Self-awareness
Self-management
NSW PDHPE Syllabus
Examines and evaluates strategies to manage current and future challenges (PD4-1)
Demonstrates self-management skills to effectively manage complex situations (PD4-9)
Victorian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education
Plan, rehearse and evaluate options (including CPR and first aid) for managing situations where their own or others’ health, safety and wellbeing may be at risk (VCHPEP144)
Identify and critique the accessibility and effectiveness of support services based in the community that impact on the ability to make healthy and safe choices (VCHPEP145)
Activity 1
Group brainstorm: Ways to chill
10 minutes
Explain to students that one way to cope with stress is to make sure we take the time to do activities that help us to relax.
Provide students with access to the ReachOut.com infographic ‘Ways to chill for cheap’.
Using the poster as inspiration, students create their own version, demonstrating things they like to do to chill out. They could do this individually, in pairs or as a group.
Students can be creative using an application such as canva, or butcher’s paper and markers.
Once complete, students can display their posters in a common area or by digital means.
Activity 2
Video meditation: 'I'm hangry'
10 minutes
Explain to students that a common way to relax is through mindfulness, an example of which is meditation.
Students find a space and make sure they are comfortable. This may be lying on the floor, seated at their desks or sitting with their backs to the wall.
Play the ‘"I'm hangry" meditation’ clip.
Ask students how the exercise made them feel.
