Wellbeing Programs

Wellbeing at Vermont Primary School

 

At Vermont Primary School, we are committed to not only supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our students, but also to developing their emotional literacy, promoting student strengths in education and building social and emotional awareness.  

We have a range of programs that we use at VPS on a universal level across all classrooms. These programs are evidence-based and backed in research from multiple institutions.

 

Friendology

 

Friendology is a whole-school approach to promoting healthy friendships and problem-solving skills that are transferable to real world scenarios. Through 8 lessons at each year level, Friendology teaches skills, strategies and a common language of friendship to help students build and maintain healthy relationships.

 

The concepts covered vary depending on the year level. In the Junior levels, concepts covered include:

  • Building self-esteem
  • Finding strength in diversity
  • Building friendships
  • Communication
  • Building Connection
  • Navigating friendship challenges

In the Upper years, students continue to explore topics such as self-esteem and communication but also delve into more complex scenarios such as:

  • Disagreements
  • Parties
  • Changes in friendship dynamics
  • Rumours
  • Online safety
  • Respecting personal choices

All of these lessons are taught through student-friendly language and peer to peer conversations are encouraged with teacher guidance. 

   

Respectful Relationships

 

The Respectful Relationships curriculum promotes and models respect, positive attitudes and inclusive behaviours. It teaches our students how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence. The curriculum covers 8 topics across each year

 level and is designed to grow with the students as they develop a more complex understanding of the world around them.

 

The topics covered are:

Respectful Relationships

  • Emotional Literacy
  • Personal & Cultural Strengths 
  • Positive Coping
  • Problem Solving
  • Stress Management
  • Help-Seeking
  • Gender Norms & Stereotypes
  • Positive Gender Relations

Respectful relationships is a government initiative backed by the Department of Education and all the resources are accessible via the department’s website.

 

Living Ripples

 

Living Ripples is a survey created by Resilient Youth Australia and is designed to collect and analyse data relating to mental health, wellbeing & resilience across our school community.

 

The survey is broken into 8 categories that underpin resilience and wellbeing.

  • Friendship
  • Family living ripples
  • School
  • Bullying
  • Anxiety
  • Caring
  • Hope
  • Risk Factors

This survey and partnership with Resilient Youth Australia allowed us to explore the areas and resources that we, as a community need to build up to ensure that all members of the school community having a key role in promoting a supportive, encouraging and positive school culture.