The King David School sees student wellbeing as a major priority which fosters the conditions for identity development and learning. We teach Wellbeing classes across the whole school with a view to equipping each student with developmentally appropriate skills that enable them to thrive through building their sense of belonging, their emotional intelligence and their self-concept.

For instance, across the Junior School we have adopted a focus in our student wellbeing classes that targets the 13 key skills identified as vital to forming and maintaining friendships. We teach, assess and report on these skills as we understand that friendship is vital to a student's experience, happiness and sense of self. While for many students, these skills come naturally, for some, skills like initiating play, winning and losing well, starting and maintaining a conversation, or playing flexibly need scaffolding and work to master.

Another key initiative is our daily wellbeing time which is set aside for mindfulness practices which refocus our students for their afternoon classes.

While our students appreciate all of our wellbeing staff, they particularly love Gunther, our wellbeing labrador. Gunther hones in on students who might need to give or receive some affection and has been trained to offer gentle support to those who require it. Another important aspect of Gunther’s role is responding to emails or letters delivered through our Woof Mail system. This provides students with an independent third party with whom to share their concerns or seek advice.  

While some of our specialist wellbeing teachers run our formal wellbeing classes, I believe that every staff member at our school is a wellbeing educator as the manner in which they acknowledge students, interact with them and intervene when required offers such valuable role modeling as to how to function in a community.

This is one of the reasons why it is so vital that all of our staff attended our annual Wellbeing Conference which ran at the Dandenong Road Campus on Monday 13 July. This is a day dedicated to gifting staff with programs, activities and experiences that enable them to foster their own wellbeing practices and their capacity to support the flourishing of student wellbeing.

We began the day with a communal Tai Chi session. We then heard from our Keynote speaker, Daniela Falecki, who ran a session for all staff on Navigating Change with Mental Toughness. Daniela explained her thesis that workplace wellbeing is derived from systems, culture and practices that allow staff to negotiate professional challenges with requisite resources and through application of mental resilience. She focuses on the four C’s of mental toughness which are control, commitment, challenge and confidence.

The next session focused on building staff wellbeing skills through demonstration of mindfulness techniques such as meditation, mindful art, brain breaks and yoga.

Daniela ran a second session for the staff who hold positions of responsibility on Leading with Wellbeing in Mind. This session focused on building transformative initiatives at work that allow for their teams to build positive communication, shared goals, and energising connections. She explained that schools that focus on building a sustainable culture of care show significant improvements in many human resource measures such as enhanced collaboration, teamwork, staff retention and reduced absenteeism.

I am so proud of the manner in which The King David School emphasises all aspects of our students’ development. Through adopting best practice wellbeing programs, curriculum and staff professional development, we create the conditions for our students to flourish holistically, to be equipped to overcome challenges and to foster strong interpersonal connections.