Student Wellbeing

Student Wellbeing

“St. Margaret’s promotes the growth of the whole person, acknowledging and celebrating that we learn and develop at different rates.”

At St. Margaret’s, we recognise positive interaction between students and strive to provide opportunities to develop skills to equip our students throughout their life. The “Bounce Back” (Helen McGrath and Toni Noble) resilience program is taught to support children in the often unpredictable journey of life.

Education equips young people with the knowledge, understanding, skills and values to take advantage of opportunity and to face the challenges of this era with confidence. Schools play a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians ... (MCEETYA 2008, p. 4)

Research on health and wellbeing shows that schools are important environments for the promotion of wellbeing in children and young people. The connection between the promotion of wellbeing and positive learning outcomes is clear. Further, positive learning outcomes occur when delivered through a framework of social and emotional learning (SEL) approaches. Together they provide a sound basis for developing future healthy relationships and, ultimately, achieving success in life.

The Catholic Education Office Melbourne sees wellbeing at the core of learning and school improvement. Children and young people who are happy, confident, and able to establish meaningful relationships are better placed to achieve positive learning outcomes.

The focus of wellbeing in St Margaret’s community, therefore, is on implementing a strategy to improve classroom and school climate in our schools; to improve pro-social outcomes; to maximise teaching and learning approaches for positive learning; to create safe and supportive environments in our schools; and to improve connections across the whole school community.

At St Margaret’s the “Bounce Back” (Helen McGrath and Toni Noble) resilience program is taught to support children in the often unpredictable journey of life that provides joys, satisfactions, and highlights, but also some difficulties, frustrations, disappointments and hard times. They learn that through meeting life’s challenges we become stronger and better able to cope with times of hardship and adversity.

We recognize positive interaction between students with a weekly SRC Values Award where the Student Representatives from each class nominate a child who has displayed St Margaret’s values during that week. The staff then chooses a winner who is presented with a prize and holds a trophy for the week. Our School Values and School Rules are displayed and articulated clearly in order to foster connectedness and a shared vision. Cross age activities are provided and innovative ideas developed and displayed to provide clear expectations throughout the school. Whole school meditation time has also been developed to help generate inner peace and fulfilment.