At BSAK, student wellbeing has always been one of our priorities, never more so since the disruption to social and emotional learning due to COVID. With that in mind at the start of last academic year we began a process of reviewing and reflecting on our wellbeing provision.
Wellbeing. One Mission, many leaders
To learn more about relationships, health, celebration, resilience and engagement click the button below.
A focus on student wellbeing is essential for children to be able to thrive within their school environment rather than merely survive. Emotional Health and Wellbeing (EHW) is key for our children to be happy, settled and ready to learn.
Primary students at an Abu Dhabi private school wore their clothes inside out on Friday to encourage conversations about children’s mental health.
The initiative, known as “Inside Out Day”, aims to show that what is going on inside is not always reflected on the outside.
Charlie Barker, a year six head boy at the British School Al Khubairat (BSAK) suggested the idea to mark Children’s Mental Health Week, which runs until Sunday. Inside Out Day is marked at many schools across the UK this week.
Click here to read the full article on 'The National'
Here’s why students of Abu Dhabi school are wearing their clothes inside out
Wellbeing means different things to different people, but in essence, it is young people being in a state of mind which allows them to flourish, to be their very best.
As a school we want every one of our students to ‘exceed expectations’, in order to do this wellbeing must be at the heart of everything we do.
‘Wellbeing positively influences student learning outcomes, and success in learning enhances student wellbeing’
Often people talk about Wellbeing, ‘in addition to’, or ‘instead of’, academic success, but as the quote above illustrates, you can not have one without the other!
One of the most important sources of feedback we have is our students. We wanted to know from them, what we were already doing well, and what we could do as a school to improve. The outcome from our student survey was that our students felt rewarded and celebrated for their effort and academic achievements but they wanted more emphasis put on rewards for character traits and our school values. For this reason the decision was made to focus on Celebration this academic year.
Do you want to learn more about what engagement or resilience means to our BSAK Students? Click below to watch a video about every aspect of our Wellbeing Wheel recorded by our students.
Celebration contributes to wellbeing as it allows students to look at themselves with a sense of pride (Seligman, 2012). Extrinsic rewards show our students that we have ‘noticed’ and by encouraging them to reflect upon their successes, they will begin to recognise their personal growth. Our hope is that with increased and targeted celebration we will boost our students' self esteem and confidence. As well as help them to appreciate that school is about more than just the series of grades they achieve at the end of each year, it is about the person they become.
To find out more about about our Wellbeing approach in BSAK Secondary click the button bellow to download the wellbeing newsletter.
Secondary Wellbeing Newsletter