The heart of wellbeing

For the past several years, Mrs Wake’s role has been designing and implementing the Wellbeing Programme in the Junior School to assist students in things like Character Strengths, emotional management, attention and awareness, positive relationships, coping and habits and goals.

Backflips Against Bullying is a really engaging way to explore positive relationships with our youngest students. It is an example of the way in which the Wellbeing Programme finds strong points of engagement, assisting children in these important areas of growth and development.

This year her role has expanded to head up Wellbeing across Years K-12. The programme is about students understanding their individual character and identity and creating a sense of belonging in order to positively relate to those around them and serve our world.

Mrs Wake says the benefit of the Programme expansion is that the wholistic approach to wellbeing can be consistently implemented from Kindergarten to Year 12 in age-appropriate ways as students progress to graduation.

“The character development and learning that is an essential part of wellbeing takes time,” she says. “The expanded programme means that students have the time for the concepts to be deeply embedded over the course of their school life. It enables them to shape who they are as people.”

“The School’s Christian foundations are the basis of the Programme and this shapes the Positive Psychology approach taken throughout.”

Across K-12 the core elements of the Programme don’t change, however the content and activities reflect the developmental stage of the students. So, in terms of positive relationships, Junior School students learn about healthy friendships whereas Senior College students, for example, learn also about consent and romantic relationships.

In the several years that Bronwyn has been at St Andrew’s Cathedral School, the Wellbeing Programme has developed in a variety of ways including the initial introduction of the Character Strengths programme (including Character Strength illustrations that are evident throughout the School), the Wellio classroom programme and further tailoring of content to better suit students and the ethos of the School.

The 15 Character Strengths are a key part of the School’s approach to Character Education. Students are encouraged to consider their individual and group strengths, and how they can apply them across a number of contexts in the school community, such as service, leadership and social responsibility.

As an International Baccalaureate World School, approaches to learning skills (ATL) and IBDP learning dispositions have been incorporated into the School’s Character Strengths, backed by research and Christian perspectives, systematically building skills and character, setting students up for success.

Ms Kate Layhe, Director of Learning (Middle School) and MYP Coordinator at St Andrew’s Cathedral School says “MYP does not provide content but oversees the way subjects are taught and assessed. In line with character development, it’s not about the final product, it’s about a journey of learning, a journey of developing.

“The MYP framework enables the School in its efforts to support the development of character, such as the need to be Reflective, Open-minded or Principled; strengths that are written into both academic units of work and pastoral care programmes. Character Strengths are at the centre of the MYP,” says Ms Layhe.

“The framework also supports the School to develop caring members of the community who act to make a positive difference to the lives of others and their environment.”

St Andrew’s Cathedral School takes a holistic view of student wellbeing. The approach integrates these Character Strengths and service with a strong curriculum, including high expectations of student learning, student leadership opportunities, a wide variety of challenging co-curricular activities including world class performing arts and outdoor education activities, and comprehensive pastoral care and Christian development programmes. 

Deputy Head of School, Mr. Brad Swibel, plays a key role in developing and implementing the Wellbeing Programme for Senior College students.

He says that the focus for the Senior College programme is based on “what we know of young people’s concerns and mental health in Australia informed by our own regular wellbeing surveys.”

“The main focus areas are development of character, respectful relationships, positive growth mindset, resilience, balanced lifestyle and community engagement,” he says. “This is supported through evidence-based, high-quality programmes combined with visiting workshop speakers.”

Mr Swibel says the aim is for students to learn skills and embed thinking that helps them have their own agency and use their time well when they are studying and preparing for tests and tasks.

“We want them to be able to recognise when things are not going well for themselves and in their relationships, and to have the self-advocacy and courage to take steps to improve these,” he says. “We also want them to feel that they can contribute to a vibrant and diverse school community and beyond through involvement and service.”

Partnering with students, the programme material is teamed with a very effective use of data by pastoral leaders to identify areas of focus and to support individual students through regular monitoring of attendance, behaviour and wellbeing survey results.

So with the ongoing development of the Wellbeing Programme, how does it extend further to support students outside of school? Mrs Wake says that by far the most essential element to the success of the Wellbeing Programme is the involvement of parents.

“It’s very much a partnership,” she says. “We have staff who are experts in this area but parents have the relationship.

“We have some excellent guest speakers about important topics but it’s the conversations that parents have with their children at the dinner table that really integrates that learning.”

The School has a variety of ways to bring parents into the learning process. The SchoolTV is an excellent platform with video content from experts tailored to the needs the School has identified on a variety of topics that parents can access.  The Coffee in the Hub events are also specially designed to build relationships between parents.

Junior School and Gawura parent seminars are held once a semester and cover subjects such as how to help your child manage big emotions or develop resilience.

The School is also partnering with the company, Wellio, which helps secondary students proactively improve their mental wellbeing using research-backed habits and techniques. The programme supports students in improving their sleep, managing social media use, building healthy relationships, improving physical wellbeing, and reducing anxiety. Alongside their work with secondary students, Wellio is delivering webinars each term to parents on topics such as phone addiction.