[SCHOOL COMMUNITY] Buddy Bench Brings Bountiful Benefits

The Yew Chung International School of Beijing is consistently on the forefront when creating and implementing new education models to improve all areas of schooling, from our Early Childhood Education Section up to our unique Co-principal Leadership model.

In recent weeks, even our Primary School students (some as young as Year 4) have taken upon themselves to help improve the school where they see a need, in this case by creating the Buddy Bench. Two of our Year 4 students, Celeste and Taj, who help to run the Buddy Bench during recess recently introduced how the activity works and how it’s been received by their classmates.

How does the Buddy Bench work?

Helpers like us manage the Buddy Bench during recess time. Kids come to the bench if they don’t have any friends to play with, so we’ll organize games to play with them. Sometimes people come to the bench to just sit and rest too.

How did you come up with this idea?

We have a Primary School Council meeting every Tuesday with our Student Council Teachers Mr. Ms. Martin, Ms. Lim, Mr. Hardt, Ms. Kang, and Ms. Killeen where we talk about ways to make the school better. One thing that we noticed was that there were a lot of problems on the playground with kids playing silly games which would sometimes become too serious. We decided to try out this Buddy Bench idea because we thought it would help make the playground more positive, encouraging kids to play games and make new friends.

What do your friends think of the Buddy Bench? Do they like it?

A lot of kids like it! It’s always really popular, usually with 20 or more kids coming to visit it every recess. It’s helped kids who didn’t used to have friends make friends. There was one girl, a new student, who was a little shy at first, but since the Buddy Bench started she gets along a lot better with others and has a lot of friends.

What are some of the games that kids like to play at the Buddy Bench?

The most popular games are active games where you can run around like Freeze Tag, Duck Duck Goose, and Octopus.

How do you think the Buddy Bench has improved recess?

It’s helped kids who didn’t have a lot of friends before to make friends more easily. It’s also created a more positive playground where kids are friendlier with each other.

Any ideas to make the Buddy Bench even better?

We’d like to build a shed or something for shade because the bench can get really hot during the day. We also hope more Primary School classes can be a part of supervising the Bench and helping out so we can help more kids.

The initiative shown by our Primary School students to create such a thoughtful activity for their classmates is just one example of the inner transformation our children experience during their time at the Yew Chung International School of Beijing.