From Carolyn Goode

This term started with a professional learning day for staff which focused heavily on analysing some wellbeing data and what this told us about our students.  Our second and third sessions for the day delved into interventions to enhance both wellbeing of students and their learning.  Staff were also provided with some time to complete 4 different online learning modules which they are required to undertake every 12 months.

As part of the wellbeing data analysis the following was analysed in year level educator teams: The Resilience Project student survey for students in Years 5-12, the F-4 student wellbeing survey, attendance data, students who arrive late data, wellbeing referrals per year level (amount), and Behaviours of Concern data (amount per year level).  At the end of the session, educator groups presented their findings and spoke to some selected interventions to support the wellbeing and ultimately, the learning of students.  It was a great opportunity for us to commence the new semester with a clear picture of where our year levels are at with regard to their wellbeing.  Part of this session invited staff to look at the report in this link which highlights how schools measure wellbeing and references the direct link between wellbeing and a student’s readiness to learn.  

Last term I provided a link to the survey data which came from The Resilience Project survey.  Parents of students within the F-4 community may be interested in the data from the F-4 wellbeing survey.  This survey had a lot less questions and staff were encouraged to provide explanations for each of the questions which were read to the students.  Students selected emojis and names were not gathered from this survey so there is no individual data available.  The link provided is for year level data.  There were 4 categories of questions: ‘Enjoyment at school’, ‘Connected’, ‘About Me’ and ‘About Friends’.  

Each category had 4 questions.  Here are the results:

Some of the overall findings for this survey include: The SOLE framework is generally well understood, boys are struggling more than girls to find enjoyment in regular reading habits and good exercise habits are generally decreasing for girls as they get older. Forgiving others was an area of deficit for students in Years 3 and 4.  There are limitations to all data, but this certainly provided some good information for staff to think about how we can better support our students in these areas.

Another area of discussion in the wellbeing space has been the embedding and teaching of the compulsory Respectful Relationships curriculum.  It is acknowledged that one of the more tricky topics to cover is Topic 8: Positive gender relations. There is material that schools are provided with to deliver content for this topic. There is also some really helpful information for parents within this link.  There’s a great resource booklet available here for parents to help them have discussions about sex and most importantly about positive gender relationships.

Finally, last week we welcomed the third new member to our Wellbeing Team, Jessica Daniel.  We are really looking forward to the contribution that Jess will make to our Team.

Carolyn Goode

Deputy Principal

Wellbeing