Wellbeing & Positive Education: What Went Well

Every Friday afternoon, the students (and teachers) in Year 6 meet together to reflect on What Went Well during the week. Their responses have been about anything from gaining confidence in the swimming pool, to enjoying a group activity; having fun with friends to learning new strategies in maths. As our brains have a natural negativity bias, focusing on the positive elements of our week, helps us rewire our thoughts to look out for what is going well, rather than what is going wrong. This, according to Positive Psychology principles, boosts happiness and wellbeing. 

As the half-term comes to a close, we would like to reflect on What Went Well in the development of our wellbeing programme. 

Surveys

All students from Year 2, and all staff,  were given the opportunity to complete surveys about their wellbeing, enabling us to prioritise our next steps. Here is an example of how this has been approached:

 

Our Middle (image 1) and High (image 2) School data shows that many of our students are not confident using strategies to support their mental health when they are struggling. As a result, we are running Wellbeing Workshops with all students, on a rotation basis, during PSHE lessons; and we have had two assemblies that have focused on wellbeing. This half-term we explored stress management techniques to raise awareness about what causes us stress, and shared strategies that help us manage it. 

Staff Wellbeing Team

Ten members of staff have volunteered their time and skills to support student wellbeing. Their first task was to analyse the data from student wellbeing surveys to help us decide how we could respond to student needs, requests and ideas. The team is committed to trialling new wellbeing strategies, sharing them with their colleagues and supporting students in any way they can. 

Staff Mentors

A team of staff is now offering mentoring to students who need help with areas such as motivation, organisation, managing friendship issues or similar challenges that arise. Mentors will be taking an approach of active listening, gently guiding students and supporting them in setting goals to help them overcome difficulties. It will be offered to students who have been referred to the Wellbeing Team by form tutors or class teachers. 

School Counsellors

For our students who need more specialist support, our school counsellors will now be available for one to one sessions on Tuesday mornings and for small groups and workshops on a Friday morning. They will liaise closely with The Wellbeing Team in order to ensure that relevant topics are covered during group sessions. 

Student Wellbeing Ambassadors

Eight students from Years 7 to 13 have volunteered to represent their peers by finding out about their wellbeing needs, suggesting ways in which we can develop our wellbeing programme and organising initiatives to promote wellbeing throughout the school. We are looking forward to our first meeting after half-term. 

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What's Next?

Student Logo Competition

Students have been asked to design a logo for our wellbeing programme. Details have been shared with them and we look forward to seeing their entries after the break. 

Elementary 

A wellbeing assembly will take place every three weeks and wellbeing sessions with classes will happen on a rotation basis. 

Parent Workshops

Next half-term, there will be workshops exclusively for RIS parents. During these workshops, our Positive Education approach to wellbeing will be explained and strategies that can be used at home will be shared.

Elementary - Parent Wellbeing and Positive Education Workshop 

Monday 13 November 14.15 - 15.15 

Middle and High School - Parent Wellbeing and Positive Education Workshop 

Monday 20 November 16.00 - 17.00

Tuesday 21 November 09.00 - 10.00 (repeat session)

For further information about any of the above, please contact Mrs Phillips.