A BUDDY bench is a simple way to eliminate loneliness and foster friendship on the playground and Georgiana Molloy Anglican School have just put one in their playground. The year six students at GMAS said when you had no one to play with you could sit on the bench and someone would come and ask the person to join their game. The students said even a lot of people in groups would use it or people who did not have friends to play with.
“You can find people who may not have friends and help them and play with them,” they said.
The idea of a buddy bench is that it becomes a place for people to make friends and to teach children about caring by asking other people to play. A student in the United States named Christian started the idea when he asked his teacher if they could create one for their playground. In his video about the buddy bench, Christian said there were three ways it could be used, the first was to ask someone else to play. The second was to ask someone to walk and talk and the third was when two people found each other sitting at the bench to play or talk.
