Wellbeing
Wellbeing
Wellbeing is our ability to feel good and function well. It provides us with the resilience to navigate the natural highs and lows we all experience in our lives, and to bounce forward. And in doing so, enables us to cognitively, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and physically thrive. At St John’s Grammar we all aspire to Learn to Soar, and our wellbeing framework provides the wings to do so. We pride ourselves on being a safe, supportive, inclusive, confident and connected learning community and at all times, the wellbeing of our students, staff and families is at the core of school life.
Introducing our Wellbeing Framework
We have a strong culture of wellbeing in and for our community, and are now very excited to launch our whole school wellbeing framework – a program that is unique to St John’s Grammar that will guide the explicit wellbeing learning, initiatives and experiences we provide in our school community.
Our St John’s Wellbeing Framework is underpinned by six key pillars and each of these pillars captures key aspects of wellbeing while recognising the diversity of actions, relationships and learning that build and sustain wellbeing. Our six Wellbeing pillars are:
- Belonging and Relationships
- Courage and Adventure
- Knowledge and Learning
- Mind and Body Wellness
- Passion and Purpose
- Service and Spirituality
Wings Program enables delivery of wellbeing learning to students
While the Wellbeing Framework provides the structure for our Wellbeing program, our Wings Program enables us to embed this important learning into our curriculum from Years 3-12, and we have plans for expansion into ELC – Year 2.
How is Wings embedded into the curriculum?
Some elements of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) or Personal and Social Capability (the term used in General Capabilities of Australian Curriculum) are taught explicitly through the Health and Personal Development program and the Health and Physical Education learning area. Additionally, we have the potential to focus on these crucial skills and other age and stage, developmentally appropriate wellbeing areas, to enhance our pastoral care program at St John’s Grammar.
On the Junior Campus
We have introduced wellbeing as specialist area in Year 3 – 6 at the Junior School in 2019. The focus of Wings in the Junior School will be on social and emotional learning; providing the knowledge, and skills to develop the ability to care for themselves and others, make responsible decisions, establish and maintain positive relationships, and bounce forward from challenging situations.
On the Secondary Campus
Our Middle School and Senior School students will participate in Wings sessions in the Health and Personal Development curriculum (7-10) and during pastoral care time (7-12), with developmentally appropriate topics and themes discussed. The Wings Program will incorporate all of the “Knowledge and Learning” aspects to wellbeing in our Middle School and Senior School. WINGS will be delivered through both the curriculum and pastoral care timetables, with 7H/PD and 8H/PD being renamed “7 WINGS” and “8 WINGS” respectively.
Does Wings incorporate faith-based learning?
Another of the six new wellbeing pillars at St John’s is “Service and Spirituality” and important learning from the Religion and Values Education (RAVE) subject will now be provided, in part, through the Wings program. As an Anglican School, we are committed to providing experiences for our students to explore faith-based activities and opportunities and our regular chapel services, combined with student and staff worship groups, retreats, our citizenship program, and a range of other new initiatives will be designed around this key pillar of Service and Spirituality. The Year 9 Rite Journey program and the Year 10 Purposely WELL program will also be part of the Wings suite of wellbeing learning.
In addition to this, each year level will have one dedicated Wings pastoral care session each fortnight, that has been designed to sit alongside our Wednesday Wellbeing Series program.
ParentTV
Our school has recently signed up to ParentTV on behalf of all of our parents and staff. ParentTV is an on-demand video streaming website for parents delivering the help they need from trusted experts anytime of the day or night. Experts include a paediatrician, occupational therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, accredited practising dietitian, autism consultant, behaviour therapist, sleep consultant, technology expert, social worker, health and wellness expert and counsellor, with new experts coming on every month.
How to access ParentTV
You can create your own personal account below for FREE through your schools subscription. In your account you will be able to create individual profiles for each of your children based on their age and gender. The website then shows you the content most relevant to each child based on your preferences and their profile.
To create an account using your school’s subscription make sure you go to www.parenttv.com/membership and use the code given in the Weekly Update email from Week 4, Term 1 to gain access to all of the videos.
Resources and Links
For students and families:
Headspace: www.headspace.org.au
Youth Beyond Blue: https://www.youthbeyondblue.com/
ReachOut: https://au.reachout.com/
Kids Helpline: https://kidshelpline.com.au/ 1800 55 1800
For parents and carers:
ParentTV: parenttv.com/membership
St John’s Grammar School parents can access ParentTV, which is a free, on-demand and expert-led video resource on a variety of parenting topics. To create an account using your school’s subscription make sure you go to www.parenttv.com/membership and use the special code given in the Weekly Update email from Week 4, Term 1 to gain access to all of the videos.
