Special delivery: Students pen heartfelt postcards to classmates and teachers for Respect Week

Students from Redcliffe State High School have penned hundreds of personalised postcards with kind and thoughtful messages for their fellow classmates and teachers as part of the school’s Respect Week activities.

The school celebrates Respect Week in the last week of Term 3 each year, with the event aimed at encouraging students to be respectful and thankful for the people around them.

Redcliffe State High School Principal Shona McKinlay (pictured above) said the postcards are an easy way for the students to express their gratitude towards one another.

“The postcards are full of heartwarming messages which brighten people’s day,” Shona said.

“The postcards can be written to any student or teacher, and it reminds the students to be grateful, say they are grateful, and to recognise the value of other people around them.

“It helps to create a lovely culture in our school.

“We hand out the postcards to the students during parade, and the teachers receive theirs at our staff briefing.”

Every student who wrote a postcard was treated to a sausage sizzle yesterday.

Showing and teaching respect

Redcliffe State High School is one of 13 schools in the region that are part of the Peninsula Respect project – an initiative that was started in 2017 which sees all schools work together to change community attitudes.

Shona was instrumental in helping to get the project up and running.

“It started because we found there was some disrespectful relationships from people who came into our front office towards our staff and our teachers,” Shona explained.

“We needed to do something positive to address the issue instead of being negative all the time, and that’s how The Respect Project came to be.

“Every school celebrates Respect Week in their own different ways to remind people about being respectful.”

Redcliffe State High School also have respect classes which are held once a week.