Learning from other countries on how to teach resilience

When Japanese authorities warned of a possible mega-tsunami within three decades, they turned to an unconventional mitigation strategy: educating children. 

Pupils in Kamaishi, on Japan's eastern coast, were trained in emergency response and taught the principle of tsunami tendenko - the reformulation of an ancient code which states that each person must save themselves by avoiding assumptions, being active in their response and taking the lead.

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Finland treats education as part of collective civil defence, integrating resilience training from primary school through the workplace.

Secondary school students learn crisis preparedness, information literacy and the "72-hour concept" that ensures households can cope during emergencies.

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Iceland's 'Education Policy 2030' explicitly centres on 'resilience, courage, knowledge, and happiness'.

These aren't add-ons, they're foundational educational values.

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By contrast, the UK's resilience efforts lean heavily on the Prepare campaign, centred on a website offering adults guidance on basic emergency steps. While a useful tool, it targets a limited audience.

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We have two clear pathways forward.

We could tackle this problem through the existing PSHE provision. Resilience could be built systematically through dedicated lesson time - moving from simple explorations of building emotional resilience to the complex ideas around extreme risk preparedness, cyber threats and democratic manipulation by the end of a child's school career. 

Alternatively, we could map resilience themes across existing subjects to exploit the benefits of concurrent learning.

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