From Pastoral Care Co-Ordinator Primary

Primary Buddy Program!

Every year our Year 5 students are buddied up with our new Kindergarten students. The aims of the “Buddy” Program is to promote social and emotional development, encourage mentorship, foster a sense of community and improving academic outcomes.  

The Buddy Program promotes social and emotional development by pairing younger and older students together. This pairing allows opportunities for younger children to develop social skills, such as communication and cooperation and emotional skills such as empathy and understanding. This can clearly be seen as our kindergarten students who are always keen to catch up with their Year 5 buddies and tell them what is going on.

The Buddy Program also encourages mentorship where older students act as role models for their younger peers and demonstrate positive behaviours and attitudes. Our Year 5 students have worked hard with their buddies to support and encourage them and have been excellent, caring role models.  

Another important aspect of the Buddy Program is promoting a sense of community. By pairing students from different grades as sense of inclusivity and connectedness among students across the school occurs. Our current Year 5 students have been wonderful at greeting their buddies in the mornings and assisting with their transition into school for the day.  

A final bonus of the Buddy Programis the improvement in academic outcomes. Buddies can work together on academic tasks which can help the younger students develop important skills such as problem solving and reinforce concepts for older students.  

This year, we have continued the Buddy Program with the Year 6 and Year 1 students. Some examples of the activities they have been involved in include buddied reading, borrowing from the Library and a Science Investigation about our thumbs. Our buddies are also present within our Peer Support program as they are grouped together for this program too.