Positive Purpose in Autahi

With so many members of our school community involved with the fair this weekend, this seems like a great time to talk about Positive Purpose.

In the Positive Education model, Positive Purpose is defined as 'understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefit of others'. Doing good feels good: this is not a new idea. But it is an idea that recent studies have supported over and over again. Taking positive action for others gives our lives meaning and a sense of fulfilment. It promotes our own wellbeing, as well as that of people around us.

In our communities, such as schools and families, we have the opportunity to model and support our children's instincts for altruistic behaviour. We often see how our Autahi children are keen to help each other out with problems or reach out to new children at Rising 5s and include them in a game. Taking actions for our small Autahi community is also part of this, including sharing the load at tidy up time or getting out the picnic mat.

As our children grow, we are keen to encourage them to feel that they can have a powerful role in helping others in their wider community. Our Seniors, for example, are involved with the Mana Moana programme down at the boat club. This on-going project is rooted in custodianship of our local environment and advocacy on its behalf: Positive Purpose in action for the greater good.

With this big picture in mind, it's great to see the Zest and Love with which our Autahi children recently took on the task of baking and making for our Stay and Play. They wanted to welcome our parents and Rising 5s and make a special occasion for them, and they had huge fun doing it.

Autahi are also taking the lead with our school composting programme as Composting Champions, collecting food scraps from each class. They are showing that the smallest people in our school can make positive change.

We look forward to seeing you at the fair, spreading the Positive Purpose love and (hopefully) feeling the personal benefits of contributing to our community.