School is no longer just about reading, writing and arithmetic.

Students at Dellwood Middle School spent two days last week having a break from normal classroom routine to participate in workshops on anger management.

The programme is just one component of the Preventative Programming the school is running through the Support Services department.

Parts of the initiative are focused on intervention and direct service to specific students. The anger management workshops, as part of the preventative aspects of the initiative, were more broadly focused on a cross-section of around 45-50 students.

Divided up into two workshops on two separate days, the students learned new skills such as understanding anger: "a normal human emotion that has to be managed," said Dellwood principal Janette Musson.

The workshops, which were "very hands-on", involved children talking and listening to one another, practising problem-solving with different scenarios and experimenting with different ways of responding to various situations.

"It was a very pragmatic approach," said Ms Musson.

She said the children had "responded well" to the workshops, run by Bercon's Angela Fubler and Crystal Burgess.

The initiative was put together by Dellwood counsellors Tanya Simmons and Melvina Mouchette as well as education therapists Trevor Williams and Vernita Paynter.

They are also putting together a peer mediation training programme which will train students throughout the year to mediate in social situations at the school. "We're very excited about what they're doing," said Ms Musson.