Year 5 HPE Unit of Work

Building Bridges: A Year 5 Digital Wellbeing Unit (Stage 3)

Help your Year 5 students build the relationship skills, safety awareness and media literacy they need as they become more independent online.

Building Bridges is an 8 week, ready to teach unit that meets students where they are: spending more time in games, apps and group chats, with growing exposure to friends’ photos, posts and group content. It introduces rights and responsibilities, noticing safety signals, a simple structured approach to conflict, recognising unfair treatment, media literacy and comparison culture, community connection, help seeking, and a first, age appropriate introduction to consent language. Every lesson follows a consistent structure, so any classroom teacher can deliver it with confidence and without needing to choose between options.

The learning sequence:

Part 1: Understanding myself and my relationships
1. Rights, Responsibilities and Me (rights and responsibilities in friendships, offline and online
2. Reading the Room, Reading Myself (noticing emotional and physical safety signals)

Part 2: Understanding others
3. The STOP-LISTEN-SOLVE Method (a simple three step conflict resolution process)
4. Fair Play, Foul Play (recognising unfair treatment and exclusion)

Part 3: Understanding my online world
5. Real Connections, Curated Feeds (media literacy, comparison and real friendships)
6. Who’s Got My Back? (identifying support networks and help seeking)
7. Yes Means Yes (introducing consent in everyday digital contexts)

Part 4: Putting it into action
8. The Building Bridges Expo (a hands on group display and gallery walk)

What’s included:

• Full teacher lesson plans with learning intentions, success criteria, explicit teaching notes, common misconceptions and formative assessment guidance for every lesson
• A complete set of printable resources: Rights and Responsibilities Shield template, floor sorting cards, STOP-LISTEN-SOLVE resources, Fair Play/Foul Play scenario cards, media literacy worksheets, support network mapping tools, and Expo topic cards and planner
• A unit assessment rubric (Emerging, Achieving, Going Beyond) mapped to every outcome and curriculum code
• A teacher appendix with an outcomes at a glance table, additional teaching notes and extension ideas
• A parent/carer communication template and week by week family discussion prompts
• Curated links to Australian, evidence based further support (eSafety Commissioner, Kids Helpline, Bullying. No Way!)

Why teachers choose it:
No prep, no guesswork, and no fear based messaging; just a warm, trauma informed, strengths focused program that builds genuine relationship skills and confidence first, then layers on practical, memorable safety strategies. Every activity builds toward students genuinely understanding that respectful relationships carry rights and responsibilities both ways, and that they have the tools, support network and voice to navigate friendships and online spaces safely as they head toward Year 6.