As part of Quintilian’s ongoing commitment to providing our year 5 and 6 students with important life skills, we are excited to partner with David Castelanelli, 2018 WA Youth Ambassador. David presented the Cubs Program over eight weeks. You can read more about Weeks 1-4 here.

During weeks 5 to 8 of the Cubs Program, David worked with the students in the areas of time management, resilience, leadership, and productivity.

Week 5 – Productivity & Time Management

Do you ever feel like you’re just always too busy?

In week five of the Cubs Program, students learnt the key difference between being busy and being productive.

One of the key quotes that featured in this week was:

“It’s not the number of hours you work, but rather, the amount of work you do in the hours that truly counts”

Our Year 5 and Year 6 students were challenged to think about their biggest time-wasting activities and how much time we lose every day to meaningless tasks. We found out about the importance of avoiding ‘fake work’ (also known as pseudo work), which are tasks that make us feel productive but do not actually help us achieve our goals.

Some common examples of pseudo work included:

  • Pretending to do work on your laptop/device whilst actually playing games
  • Spending too much time colour coordinating/highlighting notes instead of studying them and memorising them
  • Only answering easy questions and never challenging yourself with hard questions

At the end of this presentation, students were challenged to:

  1. Avoid pseudo or ‘fake’ work as much as possible; to focus on being productive (not busy)
  2. To start immediately working on the task that is most important (critical) to their success – for example, starting a big project that they have been delaying
  3. To write down and consider where they waste the most time

Week 6 – Resilience

What is the most important quality that people need to succeed?

Could it be good looks? Intelligence? Motivation? Or even a bit of luck?

Whilst these all sound like appealing answers, none of them would be correct. According to the University of Pennsylvania, the most important skill that young people need to succeed is resilienceAlso known as grit or mental toughness, resilience refers to our ability to recover from difficulties and setbacks.

In week six of the Cubs Program, students discovered that resilience is needed to succeed in any area of life (including academics, sports, arts, and work).

Students also discovered the two things which people blame most when things go wrong. These were:

  • Other People;
  • Circumstances (life, luck, etc)

Since we can’t control either of these factors, we concluded that the only thing that we can control is ourselves and our own actions. Some of the practical tips that were given to increase our resilience include:

  • Volunteering: Giving back to others and understanding how lucky we are to have the opportunities we have.
  • Practicing Gratitude: Giving thanks for the gifts we have been given – within our school community, home and country.
  • Surrounding Ourselves with A Strong Team: Making sure that we have positive friends who are helping us get back up when we fall.
  • Developing Perspective: Understanding that many of our problems are minor compared to other people around the world. We attempt to see life from other people’s point of view.

Week 7 – Leadership

As the Year 5 and Year 6 students enter their final years at the school, we need to develop their leadership skills.

In this final session, students examined the different styles and types of leadership through the DISC leadership test. This personality-based test categorizes students into four different groups (D, I, S, C) based on their leadership style.

  • D stands for the dominant and decisive personality.
  • I stands for the influential and involved personality.
  • S stands for the stable and steady personality.
  • C stands for the calculating and competent personality.

Each personality type has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, which were discussed in the leadership workshop. Students then took part in an interactive DISC challenge where they had to build a tower in small groups. Points were awarded for innovation, creativity, and the ability to work together in a team.

This workshop was a fantastic opportunity for students to identify each other’s personality types and use this moving forward to work together more coherently.

Week 8 – Finale

Our final week of the Cubs Program was a phenomenal experience. After seven weeks of learning, students finally had an opportunity to test their knowledge in a series of final challenges and quizzes.

Students formed small groups (mixing Year 5 and Year 6 students) and were given difficult questions from the last seven weeks of the program. The winners of the final quiz received an extra-large box of Cadbury Favourites to share!

This year, it was a group of Year 5/6 girls who took out the final prize.

Thanks to David Castelanelli for facilitating this amazing program, and to our Year 5 and 6 teachers. To read more about David and the great work he does, you can visit his website.