Getting back to school, work and life

There is so much joy in the streets of London at the moment, as children skip and hop back to school, to see their friends, to play and yes, to learn a little bit too. Faces rosy from having spent time outside, crisp, newly cleaned uniforms, busy mummies in toe on their phones… this is the general picture and it is mostly a happy one but just yesterday, a friend was telling me how her son, who last year had been bullied at school and had been really depressed as a result, had come back from holidays in really good form, started in a new class and, just four days into the new term, was back into his rut.

These are the conversations that we want to stop from happening, not by silencing the parents but by giving the children the skills not only to cope, but to thrive at school and in life.

We ran over 30 courses over the summer holidays and have received some amazing feedback from parents, in particular about how our Resilience Course and Brilliant Me and My Feelings Course for the younger children, have really changed not only the habits and attitudes of the children themselves but also the general dynamics of their families.

Bullies exist in schools, in offices and everywhere else and we have all encountered them at some point in our lives. What we teach children is to not be scared, to be comfortable with who they are, proud of what they can achieve and to understand and manage their own feelings and those of others so as not to get hurt.

Life will never be perfect, for us or for our children, but at Role Models we strongly believe that it can be a lot better for everyone if we all learn to be mindful of others, to try our best, not give up and to add a bit of fun to all we do. If all the children that attended our courses in the summer have learnt a bit of that, we can wake up with a smile every morning.

Francesca Nelson-Smith