It's called a buddy bench, a place where children feeling lonely can go and sit to remind other schoolkids that they would like a friend's company.
For kindergarten kids, Jack Gabriel, 6, Charlie Van Venrooy, 5 and Kirili Doyle, also 5, from Hazelbrook Public School it's a good idea.
"It feels nice doesn't it," Jack said to his friends while sharing the new colourful seat, installed in the school grounds in a quiet playground section called Bunmarra, an Aboriginal word for lizard.
The buddy bench is the brainchild of Bunnings and a local men's group.
Bunnings Valley Heights team members have been spending one day a week for the past two months at UnitingCare Springwood, building and decorating the timber bench with their men's group. They donated it to the school last Wednesday.
Vice principal Maree Cairns said the other students know the meaning of the seats and invite them to play.
"I think in the beginning they will all be fighting to sit there because it's new.
"It fits in with our positive behaviour for learning program," Ms Cairns said.
"This is the way they can sort of be anonymous but be noticed [by a teacher and other students] when they sit on it," she said.
The teachers would talk about the purpose of the chair during their regular weekly lessons on social skills, she said.
UnitedCare Ageing's Springwood Village service manager, Heather Ginard, said the members had "thoroughly enjoyed the woodworking project and were particularly pleased that the new bench seat would be used as part of an initiative to help tackle schoolyard bullying".
Ms Cairns said the school already had anti-bullying strategies, but this would "help the kids get noticed without asking".
Bunnings has built similar benches for a number of other schools around Australia, working in partnership with local groups.
"Team members from Bunnings Valley Heights are pleased to help with hands-on projects and initiatives that benefit the wider community, such as the installation of a buddy seat at Hazelbrook Primary School," Bunnings Valley Heights manager, Mark Schoonderwalt, said.
"Our team members are part of the community and we actively support a wide range of local community groups."
Buddy seats have been installed by Bunnings Warehouse Campbelltown, Crossroads, Ashfield, Hoxton Park, Bankstown and Villawood.
The school hosted a morning tea afterwards for the men's group and their carers, and talked about other projects where the young and the young-at-heart could work together. Possible ideas included visits by young chess players and parent green thumbs to the aged care facility, as well as a pen pal program and a visit on grandparents day for children missing contact with their own grandparents, Ms Cairns said.
