Sometimes students can’t explain how they are feeling. Using a continuum removes the pressure and lets students demonstrate visually how they are coping.
Year level
7-12
Duration
5 minutes
Type
In class activity
SEL Competencies
Self-awareness
Learning intention
Students can identify how they are feeling on a continuum of coping.
Key outcomes
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
recognise the different points of a continuum
acknowledge that stress can go up and down along a continuum and can change.
Materials needed
A4 paper or student workbooks
Mapped to
Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education
Plan, rehearse and evaluate strategies for managing situations where their own or others’ health, safety or wellbeing may be at risk (AC9HP10P08)
Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities
Personal and Social Capability:
Self-management
Self-awareness
NSW PDHPE Syllabus
Demonstrates self-management skills to effectively manage complex situations (PD4-9)
Plans, implements and critiques strategies to promote health, safety, wellbeing and participation in physical activity in their communities (PD5-7)
Victorian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education
Examine barriers to seeking support and evaluate strategies to overcome these (VCHPEP125)
Evaluate situations and propose appropriate emotional responses and then reflect on possible outcomes of different responses to health and wellbeing (VCHPEP147)
Activity 1
Instructions
5 minutes
Ask students to draw a continuum with the labels ‘Coping’ at one end and ‘Not coping’ at the other.
Ask students to mark on the continuum with a circle how they were feeling before school that day.
Ask students to mark how they are feeling right now.
Debrief:
Discuss with students that we all have different stressors, and that how we feel can change throughout the day, week, month and year.
Explain that it is important for students to be able to recognise how they are coping. If they are close to the ‘not coping’ end of the continuum, then they need to seek help.