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Staff Wellbeing
It might surprise many parents and students to read that staff wellbeing is even a consideration in schools. ‘Surely schools are about students?!’ many must wonder.
The social brain animation video by Sentis explains that, “Our brains don’t always operate in isolation to one another. We often trigger a threat or a reward response to the people around us. We may not even realise that we are doing this.”
A teacher who is consumed with stress and anxiety will radiate waves of tension that, whilst not directed at or linked to a particular student, may be perceived by that student’s brain as a threat.
The Sentis video goes on to ask us to consider the social messages that each of us are sending and the impact that we may be having on their brain. The nature of the teaching job means that we are all in a direct position to trigger student emotional responses; for better or for worse
Our intention is to enhance and support student wellbeing at Global Jaya School. Through taking care of teacher wellbeing we are creating a workplace environment where staff feel valued and cared for in order that teacher and student relationships might be strengthened and our students’ emotional regulation might be supported. Students who are able to regulate their emotions are able to more effectively engage in their learning.
One of the ways in which we seek to support teacher wellbeing at Global Jaya is by creating opportunities for teachers to try out a new activity, connecting with other colleagues in a fun and relaxing pursuit.
Immediately prior to the October break, staff were able to sign up for one of three staff social activities:
Learn to play the kolintang
Participate in fun drama games
Mindful mandala colouring
Our next staff wellbeing event will offer our teachers the choice of experiencing a guided relaxation, participating in a Dangdut dance activity and a grounding, creative group task.
Connecting Students in Support of Wellbeing
Feeling connected to others is one way in which we can support wellbeing. Home Based Learning led to many students around the world feeling socially isolated. The challenge with blended learning is how to reunite our community members who have forgotten how to socially connect with others. An additional obstacle for us to navigate is that, at any one time we have community members both synchronously present in school and online. We have launched ‘Social Connections’ once a month where we facilitate relationship building in our student community by providing them with a fun activity to engage in together.
The Social Connections activity for this month was designed to coincide with Halloween and was provided by our very talented members of the student council. Student council created an online escape room activity called, ‘The Void’ where teachers and students had to work together to solve the puzzle. Here is a picture of Saladdin in 11C reading out the part of the protagonist whilst two of his other classmates read their parts out online.
The weekly SSS Chatterbox events are also a platform through which we hope to unite students who are interested in discussing issues that are personal to them. A student survey provided us with information about what kinds of topics our students want to talk about. Counsellors support small student groups to come together and discuss such things as body image, dealing with conflict and navigating anxiety.
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