Year six students of Sacred Heart Primary joined year seven and eight students of Sacred Heart College to take part in the Backflips against Bullying program, a presentation which uses performers incredible acrobatic skills to captivate and engage students; earning their respect and encouraging them to take control of their own lives and make changes on a social level within the school.
The Backflips Against Bullying program features three entertainers who perform and speak about varying aspects of bullying for secondary students including cyber-bullying, physical, verbal and social harassment, real world consequences, targeted and repeated harassment, resilience, cyber-bullying, harassment, power dynamics, consent and relationships.
Before the secondary school program was started, year five and six students of Saint Mary Corowa and Rutherglen made the road trip to Yarrawonga to take part in a primary school performance which focuses on slightly different areas of bullying.
“Education is based on content and engagement. Great content isn’t enough to educate students who don’t want to learn,” The Backflips against Bullying website states.
“Engaging students in any topic is the hardest but take discrimination or bullying for example.
“The students who need to hear it the most are the ones who are hardest to engage, because instinctively we resist things that aim to challenge us, or our ways.
“Parkour and Acrobatics is one of the fastest growing trends today. But it’s unreasonable to expect that teachers will learn how to do backflips.
“And that’s what an incursion is for - bring in a specialist who can bring something new to the table. When students are engaged, they learn.
“So we engage them with backflips, and we teach them about bullying.”
Sacred Heart College Principal Lew Nagle said the program was a great tool for the schools to use as it uses another avenue to teach bullying besides what is already taught.
“The program for the high school kids was a bit more of a mature conversation as they are growing into adults, are more prevalent on social media and suicide is more heard of or known about,” Mr Nagle said.
“ClubMulwala supported the introduction of the program to the school and is continuing to support us in this being an annually held program.”
Throughout the hour-long performance there was an abundance of crowd interaction and involvement with the message of the day “words cannot control me” well received by students who appeared to be empowered in their new psychological skills.
The program also gives each school resources to teach throughout the year so the message about bullying is not lost.