Nurturing a Deep Sense of Belonging: For Our Children’s Mental Health
Belonging is crucial for well-being, happiness, mental and physical health, and even longevity. It provides a fundamental sense of purpose and meaning in life. Research consistently highlights that the absence of belonging is linked to stress, illness, reduced well-being, and depression. Feeling disconnected can be profoundly isolating, especially for children navigating their way through a […]
Enjoyment vs Necessity – the importance of celebrating effort
For everything we do can be plotted in relation to two categories. Category 1, Enjoyable: How much do I want to do this thing? Category 2, Necessity: How much do I need to do this thing? For principals, teachers and students mapping the activities that you do at school can be an interesting experience. For […]
5 things every student needs to connect, succeed, thrive and learn
There is no shortage of evidence around that the world our children are growing up in is becoming increasingly more complex. Be it economic uncertainty, increased prevalence of mental health and depression or the unknown consequences of ubiquitous consumption of social media. So, as educators we can’t predict the future, but we can foster an […]
Range – Why generalists triumph in a specialised world (tribute)
The title of this blog is lifted directly from one of the most useful books I have ever read. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you check it out (David Epstein | The Books: Range & The Sports Gene ). For those who haven’t had the pleasure of engaging with it, the book focuses on […]
Healthy wellbeing is formative wellbeing: What does success look like?
I am often asked to support schools with their school plans or to evaluate projects or initiatives that they are running. One of the first places we start is asking “What are you are trying to achieve with this plan or this project? What does success look like?” When it comes to reading and numeracy, this […]
Screen time, emotions and readiness to learn – a message for parents & carers
This week’s blog is for your parents, carers, and broader community. It will come as no surprise that the evidence suggests that excessive screen time has a negative impact on emotions and readiness to learn. Therefore, it is a good idea to reduce excessive screen time. How much screen time is excessive? A good place […]
Hitting the target but missing the point – measuring wellbeing in schools
Measuring wellbeing is tricky. As with anything we want to measure the first thing we need to be clear on is what do we mean when we say ‘wellbeing’. The World Health Organisation defines wellbeing as “a positive state experienced by individuals and societies. Similar to health, it is a resource for daily life and […]
7 tips for successful whole school wellbeing programs
Choose the response that best describes your whole school wellbeing program/s: If you answered “A” or “E”, this blog is not for you. If you answered anything else, read on for a summary of the things that are working in schools with successful wellbeing programs. While every school is different, we also have a lot […]
Happiness doesn’t have a postcode: What can teacher awareness do?
Most of us are familiar with the postcode lottery. This is the idea that depending on what postcode you are born into dictates the opportunities you have. This is more than an idea, there are plenty of statistics that support it: cue the graph of affluent schools with above average academic performance vs schools in […]