Positive Futures News

What is the EDSC Positive Futures program?

Positive Education brings together the science of positive psychology with best-practice teaching.

The school’s journey with Positive Education began in 2012 with Positive Education focuses and values implemented across each year level and over time has evolved into the whole school approach launched in 2020. 

Our Positive Futures program has some very clear goals:

• We want to improve student quality of life and their engagement with others, including with their teachers
• We seek to develop students in a more holistic way, with a stronger focus on wellbeing

There are six tenets of Positive Psychology that are embedded into our model:

Positive Health – Positive Self

Developing knowledge, understanding and skills to promote health and well – being.

Positive Relationships

Nurturing positive relationships based on respect. 

Accomplishment

Generating hope and optimism through the accomplishment of personal and community goals

Positive Emotion

Building and experiencing positive emotion. 

Meaning

Believing in serving something greater than ourselves.

Positive Engagement

Developing critical thinkers by promoting challenge, curiosity and creativity. 

More resources and information can be found here:

https://www.eastdonsc.vic.edu.au/wellbeing-engagement-positive-futures

Positive Futures – 

Return To Vertical Mentoring 

The first week of next term we will still continue in our year groups but hopefully Week 2 Term 2 we will return to our vertical mentoring groups.

This will obviously be a new experience for the Year 7s so we will be taking the time to cover the purpose of the program at the beginning of next term. 

CONTENT 

There have been a number of interruptions to the program over the last few weeks but many students have had the opportunity to reflect on how their term has gone and think about some goals they may have for next term. 

Some classes had some fun by participating in Easter Egg hunts and sharing their holiday plans. 

With the election coming up, our Year 12s also participated in a lesson all about the election process. Hopefully this was useful to our students that will be voting in May. 

All classes were encouraged to fill in our Positive Futures survey which gives us a snapshot of our students’ feelings about the program and where they are at with their positive education journey. We appreciate all students who completed this survey and we look forward to the feedback we will gain from this. 

Positive Futures Book of the Week

Sharing wise guidance on how to navigate difficult times, this is a funny, warm and practical guide to help you gain perspective on what's truly important in life - from a young woman who never expected to survive The Big C.

Perfect for fans of life-changing personal development manuals like The Resilience Project, The Happiness Project and When Life Is Not Peachy.'

This is the book everyone needs to read when life takes an unexpected turn.' - Mia Freedman, MamaMia.

Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path.

Viral video producer Briony Benjamin was a few months into a new job when she started feeling crappy... All. The. Time. Doctors told her she was just stressed and should rest more and learn to meditate. But it turns out she had cancer all through her body.

Turning the camera on herself, Briony started documenting her journey in the short video 'You Only Get One Life'. Its raw portrayal of her experience went viral, touching millions.

Here Briony shares some of the important lessons learnt through her illness and recovery - everything from how to assemble your A Team in times of crisis and learning to make friends with the pain, to happy hacks for cutting yourself some slack and some great tips on being a kick-arse support human when a friend is going through the rough stuff.

If you want to live the richest version of your life, bring some more joy into your day-to-day existence and have some tools up your sleeve for when things get tricky, this book is for you. 

Because - spoiler alert - we all have to deal with our fair share of tough times sooner or later. It's how we handle them and bounce back afterwards that really matters.

Rebecca James

Student Engagement and Connection Learning Specialist