What is Better Buddies?

Better Buddies is an initiative of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation designed to create friendly and caring school communities where bullying is reduced.

Most Australian schools implement some sort of Buddy System with their students.  The Better Buddies Framework explains how to get the best out of your buddy system and provides guidelines to plan for success.  It includes student training and classroom activities focused on explicitly teaching social skills and values.

The Better Buddies Framework has taken the positive aspects of buddy systems in schools and built a framework all primary schools can use which is backed by sound research evidence.  The Better Buddies Framework can be used to support and enhance an existing school buddy system or to introduce a new buddy system to the school. 

The essential characteristic of a buddy system is that it supports students' transition during their first year of school. It also involves older students participating in positive, supportive, structured and facilitated one-on-one relationships with younger students.  The buddy system enables younger students to feel safe and cared for, while the older students feel valued and respected.

Students participate in structured, timetabled 'buddy time' with a teacher/s present as well as less formal, unstructured contact in the playground at break times.  The Better Buddies Framework focuses on the social situations in which bullying occurs, and addresses this by encouraging children to form positive and supportive relationships with one another.  The mascot of the Better Buddies Framework is Buddy Bear, a fun-loving and caring purple bear.  He symbolically promotes the values of the Framework and supports students' transition and orientation to school.

The whole school is encouraged to be involved in Better Buddies through the adoption of the philosophy and values throughout the school.  This whole-school approach refers to schools providing information about Better Buddies in their policies and procedures, at information nights, in booklets, in the newsletter and on the website.  The concept of peer support may be introduced to the rest of the school through other cross-age activities; however, it is important to call these groups something else to preserve the uniqueness of the relationships formed by the buddies.