Working together to build resilience at Shelley Primary School
13 Mar 2017
How can we create a cohesive culture within our school community while continuing to value individuality?
How can we foster resilience and extend student social and emotional competence across the school while juggling competing commitments?
Shelley Primary School set out to find an initiative that could assist in answering these questions. When Deputy Principal Chris Leeuwangh found SDERA's, Changing Health Acting Together (CHAT) initiative, he knew it was a good fit for the school.
An evidence-based, funded initiative that enables schools to develop a whole-school approach to resilience, alcohol and other drugs and road safety education, Shelley Primary School engaged with CHAT to implement strategies and practices to build student and staff resilience that would relate directly to their unique school context. Another benefit of CHAT acknowledged by Chris was that as a long term initiative building over a number of years, it would allow a gradual and then sustainable focus on building social and emotional competence across the school. “Being set out over a realistic timeframe meant this was not an overwhelming prospect,” he said.
Working one-to-one with a dedicated SDERA Consultant, and following an audit to see areas where the school could build for best effect, they began by documenting a Whole School Plan for Resilience and Drug Education. This included a vision statement that was inclusive of the belief that “resilience and alcohol and other drugs education is integral to the wellbeing of our students.”
A Pastoral Care Committee was formed that included a diverse group of representatives including school leadership and teachers, school psychologist, chaplain, parents, and representatives from the broader school community. With provision of resources and professional learning from SDERA, classroom programs with a skills building approach were implemented across all year levels. These focused on exploring and extending student’s knowledge, skills and capacities in the areas of relationship building, decision making, coping strategies and help-seeking behaviour.
As the students grew in their awareness of what contributes to resilience they worked on a creative communication project to illustrate this and enhance the safe feeling of the school environment. Building on an idea shared by another CHAT school, Wagin District High School, this involved developing a suite of decorative posters to introduce, reinforce and remind all on the school premises of the value and benefits of Looking after each other (early childhood), Being a fantastic friend (middle primary) and Never giving up (upper primary). These were then made into A1 signs and displayed in visible locations around the school grounds and wider school community.
Another key area of the work outlined on the school’s whole school plan was to extend classroom learning to promote parent support of the resilience and drug education programs. The school offered information to parents through parent events, by developing an information display housed in the school library, and by adding to their classroom learning with a visit by former Australian cricketer and SDERA Ambassador, Brad Hogg. Brad addressed students, staff and parents and consolidated the message that developing and practicing the skills that contribute to resilience can be the key to being happy, staying safe and achieving your goals.
Continuing to illustrate and share their learning around resilience, Shelley held a “Code of Conduct Day” that focused on team building, recognising emotions including anxiety, and understanding the benefits of talking about feelings and asking for help. It was an interactive day involving the whole school and exhibiting project work by the students. This culminated in the unveiling of three pelican sculptures named Lexi Learn, Rusty Respect and Sunny Safe. These serve as consistent, friendly reminders of
the school’s vision to build resilience and generate an ethos of support and connection in the school reflecting their code of conduct: to learn; respect and be safe.
There are currently 114 schools engaged in CHAT across WA. As part of SDERA’s commitment to ensuring that initiatives conducted in schools are effective and adhere to best practice, the Child Health Promotion Research Centre (CHPRC) at Edith Cowan University (ECU) was commissioned to conduct an evaluation of CHAT in 2014. This provided evidence that CHAT schools, like Shelley Primary School, are leading the way in ensuring that resilience, alcohol and other drugs and road safety education is delivered to the highest standard and within a best practice approach.
Shelley Primary School is on target for a Gold Level Award later this year having worked to achieve specific goals required through CHAT and building resilience through alcohol and other drugs and road safety education. Chris acknowledges that, “The CHAT initiative has allowed us to stay on track with our teaching while creating a framework to negotiate challenging pastoral care obstacles. SDERA’s Challenges and Choices resources are mapped to the WA Curriculum Health and Physical Education Syllabus making them easy to use and ensuring that by teaching resilience, alcohol and other drugs and road safety education we are achieving the required curriculum and health outcomes. We see this as a “win-win” and as a valuable and sustainable investment in our kids social and emotional learning that has paid dividends across our school community.”