Our History

In 2016 a Student Wellbeing Team was formed and undertook significant work during the year in response to the wellbeing@school survey results. With a “for students, by students, in partnership with staff” vision, the Student Wellbeing Team redesigned the school bullying processes. But that’s not all we did...

Staff meetings and speed dating

We went into staff meetings and presented our ideas to our teachers. We had conversations with them, focussing on helping them understand what it is we need as support when we’re being bullied. We rotated around the groups of teachers with our different ideas gathering feedback from their point of view as well, thus beginning the co-construction of our Wellbeing Bubble. It was pretty nerve-wracking the first time we went in there, but the more we did this the easier it became to connect and have meaningful conversations with our teachers.

What is student voice?

In August 2017 our team was interviewed by the Ministry of Education to discuss our revised bullying process and our thoughts on student voice and why it’s so important. The footage was used in two Ministry of Education videos and one of our own. The videos have since been presented at other Wellington schools and the Royal New Zealand Police College. Here’s one of the Ministry of Education videos

PB4L Conference at Wellington Michael Fowler Centre

In August, members of our Student Wellbeing Team presented our work at the National Positive Behaviour for Learning conference to educators from around the country.

For our first workshop ‘A seat at the table’ we worked in partnership with Sticks’n’Stones and students from Upper Hutt College. We started conversations with educators about student voice and working towards partnership with their students. You can read about the workshop here:

In our second workshop, we presented on the ‘Power of Positioning’ and the magic that can happen when working in the ‘with box’ (Social Discipline Window). We were able to showcase the success our team has had working with our teachers. We discussed how teachers could implement ‘with box’ positioning in their work with students. The PowerPoint we used in our presentation can be viewed here.

Victoria University Restorative Justice Roundtable

In August 2016 two of our Student Wellbeing Team members attended the Restorative Justice Roundtable at Victoria University and offered student voice in a critical discussion with academics, restorative practitioners, educational leaders, police, policy makers and youth organisations and other key organisations about how schools might respond restoratively to bullying. The event was even featured in the Victoria News article below, and the student presenters from Aotea were noted as a highlight of the day!

RTLB Workshop

In October we hosted the RTLB’s from Cluster 28 in our library for our very own workshop! We presented our work and our philosophy of working in the with-box, deconstructing discourses and believing we are experts in our own lives. We discussed in small groups how these ideas could be used in their work as RTLB’s.

Victoria University ‘Bubble’ visit

We visited the ‘Bubble’, which is Victoria University’s hub for all things wellbeing. We entered into dialogue with their Student Wellbeing Awareness Team about how Vic students support each other’s wellbeing. A special thanks to Emma Wicks who got us the opportunity to connect with the students who run the Bubble.

Year 8 Orientation Day and the Year 9 Team

At the end of the year we put the call out to Year 9’s who had an interest in wellbeing and leadership for the opportunity to run our Year 8 Orientation Day. This was important to us as Year 9’s are the experts of what is it like to transition from Year 8 to Year 9. We also ran groups during the day where the focus of the conversations were our wellbeing. The day was a huge success!

2017 so far…

Co-constructing wellbeing goals with our Deans and HODs

This year, Student Wellbeing Team members have paired up with the Deans and Head of Departments to co-construct wellbeing goals for their respective year groups and curriculum areas. This has involved going to dean and department meetings, to discuss how wellbeing fits into their department and year level cohorts.

Launching our Wellbeing Bubble Website with our Teachers

A special thanks goes to...

our teachers for walking with us on this journey, supporting us with the development of our ideas and most of all for being our Trusted Teachers!
our amazing youth worker Kerry Burton for supporting us in every way possible.
Maisy Bentley for being a constant source of inspiration and leadership. Maisy was a key leader and contributor in the ground work and formulating of the revised bullying process. You can watch her Tedx talk here.

Nicole has been our wonderful leader throughout this whole process, supporting us in constructing our ‘bubble’ and has offered up plenty of wise words and life skills along the way. The skills she has taught us such as deconstructing discourses, externalising problems and circle of influence has really helped us in not only our work for this website, but in our own personal lives and relationships as well. Her genuine passion for wellbeing and student voice is what has allowed us to take all these fantastic opportunities, we could not have achieved what we have without her!

If you are interested in our work and would like to connect with us, please contact our Head of Guidance, Nicole Macquet on 027 477 5422 or mq@aotea.school.nz

PB4L Auckland Trip

At the end of August, some of our team flew to Auckland to present our own session at the national Positive Behaviour for Learning conference. We ran the conference’s two ‘Student Voice’ sessions, encouraging educators to give students a genuine voice, authentic leadership opportunities and decision making power, in partnership with staff. We shared our journey and the building blocks that helped us create the Wellbeing Bubble and a climate of wellbeing at school. We’d like to say a huge thank you to the student leaders from Papatoetoe High School who facilitated discussion at tables and the Ministry of Education for providing us with this great opportunity and their continual support. Special thanks to Claire John for her word wizard abilities and helping us get our mojo! We’re also so grateful to all who helped us out with fundraising leading up to our trip - Rebel Sports Porirua, Brumby’s, Prestons, New World Whitby, The Co-Op Bar and the home bakers who contributed their efforts. And of course, thank you to our teachers whose continued support of our work and belief in us as leaders has enabled us to dream big and reach our goal.

BPAG Presentation

In August some of our team presented our work on the Wellbeing Bubble to a group of education professionals including representatives from New Zealand Police, Human Rights Commission, ACC, Education Review Office, NZ Assn of Intermediate & Middle Schooling, NZ Post Primary Teachers’ Association, NZ School Trustees Association, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice, Netsafe, Office of the Commissioner for Children, NZ Council for Educational Research, NZ Educational Institute Te Riu Roa, NZ Principals’ Federation, Secondary Principals’ Association of NZ, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development at the Bullying Prevention Advisory Group roundtable meeting. It was a really good opportunity to present our work and receive both constructive and supportive feedback.