A friendship desk, an excellent solution against isolation at school

Tired of bad news? So come and take a trip to La Rochelle, in Charente-Maritime, it puts a balm in the heart. In the courtyards of three schools, the city council has installed “friendship benches” where students can sit when they feel sad, lonely or harassed.

The “friendship bank” to regain confidence

It’s not easy being a kid sometimes. Between merging emotions, arguments between friends, problems at home, school pressures or harassment that can always start earlier, they can be many.

If the government seeks to propose solutions, sometimes laughable, to combat school bullying, this initiative of a “friendship desk” is so beautiful that it should be extended to all primary school courses, and even university. The concept ? It is Keyla, a CM1 student who participated in setting up the desk, who explains it to the microphone of Info France :

The goal is for a pupil of the school to come and see who is sitting and tell them: ‘I can play with you’. It’s like a magical bench !

For Nasser Aber, a school teacher, it’s also a good way to check that his students are doing well:

This allows us to see if it is always the same students who go to the friendship desk.

Checking whether students are often at the desk can also be an indicator of the state of mind of struggling students, who are not necessarily able to express their discomfort.

Because, as Karine Maissant, director of the school, points out, ” it is less of a problem in elementary schools than in middle schools, but bullying situations can still be encountered. The greatest difficulty is that it is not expressed by the child who feels oppressed”.

Caring for each other and helping each other in difficult times are great principles that should be instilled from an early age. We hope that this initiative will be developed and implemented in all schools in France.

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