What to do in the
Wellbeing Session

Dr Helen Street
October 29, 2024

The Positive Schools Big Workshops offer educators an opportunity to explore a values-led systemic
approach to building wellbeing in their staff and whole-school communities. They are very much about
the careful consideration and meaningful development of school-based contextual wellbeing. They aim
to encourage educators to consider, not so much how we can make each person well, but how we can
build a well community, in which everyone thrives.
The first two events have been hugely successful. Overall, participants from all levels of teaching, school
leadership and allied health support, have embraced the need to better understand, unpack and build
healthy school contexts. In this, healthy contexts are defined as contexts which supports everyone’s
needs for autonomy, healthy relationships and ongoing competency. When both staff and students have
these three core needs of self-determination met, they develop autonomous motivation at school,
engage more readily in school life and experience greater wellbeing.
As such, I firmly believe that understanding and building school wellbeing is not about trying to ascertain
how happy or unhappy people are, and then trying to cheer them up with a colourful array of strategies.
Rather, it is about exploring the determinants of a positive school experience and then working to build
these within each unique school context.
The two days of each Big Workshop afford me a great opportunity to encourage a more organic, real
world approach to both understanding and building wellbeing in schools. And this, means a lot.
One of the unexpected highlights of the events to date, has been the richness and depth of the
discussions held during our panel discussions. I have been encouraged to think about all sorts of
relevant and pertinent issues impacting wellbeing in schools. One question that sticks in my mind came
from the first Big Workshop, held earlier this month in Brisbane. The question referred to the best use of wellbeing classes or sessions. I was asked how schools might best use allocated time for supporting
wellbeing in the timetable, if the greatest focus for wellbeing development was now to be on supporting
day-to-day school life. In essence the participant asked:
“what does a focus on contextual wellbeing mean for wellbeing classes?”
A great question indeed.
And a question that when considered carefully, reminds us not to throw the proverbial baby out with
the bathwater.
The contextual wellbeing framework focuses on the understanding and growing of all domains of
healthy context within a school. It is about exploring and building the physical spaces, turning them into
meaningful places supporting school values and vision. It is about challenging and changing policy and
practice so that it is equitable and supportive of self-determination, and not just about outcomes and
compliance. It is about understanding the school community’s shared values and then supporting the
normalization of these in day-to-day school life. And, it is about the attitude, approach and style of
relationships between everyone within the school. Simply put, the contextual wellbeing framework is
about supporting healthy and meaningful connections within a living and breathing community.
If we are to place our focus on supporting wellbeing on developing context, the question of how best to
use timetabled wellbeing sessions seems very pertinent.
Through my work in schools I have had many discussions with students from around Australia. These
discussions have amplified my long-held belief that many young people hold skeptical views about their
wellbeing sessions, understanding them as ‘time-out from the pressures of school life’ at best. It is
concerning that many others see wellbeing sessions as ineffective for their wellbeing and often a waste
of time. Some even see them as detrimental. The sessions are believed to be particularly unhelpful
when they conceptualize wellbeing as an individual pursuit, separate to the complexities of ‘real life’ and
the many contexts in which staff and students operate day-to-day. Even when real-world examples and
anecdotes are referred to, they are not necessarily easy to resonate with, or relate to.
As an example, consider wellbeing sessions that talk to the power of gratitude and encourage ‘writing
gratitude letters’ , or wellbeing sessions that embrace the importance of mindfulness and focus on
‘practicing mindfulness.’ Many sessions such as these are compulsory for students, and rarely consider the willingness of student participation. What’s more, they are often the most ineffective for those who
need wellbeing support the most, and who are the least engaged in the session. Certainly, there is a
powerful relationship between gratitude and wellbeing and writing gratitude letters may heighten
appreciation and wellbeing in students who feel happily connected to their school context. They can,
however, be a challenging proposition for students dealing with hardship, disconnect or difference.
Similarly, a lack of understanding and voluntary engagement in mindfulness practice tends to lead to a
lack of benefit of mindfulness sessions. In reality, many students find mindfulness sessions boring,
uninteresting and a poor use of their time. I recommend reading the 2022 findings of the MYRIAD
project in the UK for some pertinent data about the ineffectiveness of mindfulness programs in schools
to support wellbeing.
Another popular use of timetabled wellbeing sessions is to showcase a guest speaker, or external
wellbeing program. Many guest speakers share uplifting personal experiences. Others share expert
knowledge and skills known to correlate with wellbeing and positive mental health. Yet, despite the fact
that many of these speakers have an engaging manner and lots to say, they too are often a poor choice
for supporting genuine wellbeing development in students. All too frequently, the students feel ‘talked
at’, rather than ‘talked with’. They frequently tell me that the speaker’s words did not resonate with
them because they were not presented in consideration of the reality of the students’ lives, in discussion
with the students.
One student I was chatting to recently said:
“It is not about being a great speaker or having a lot of information. It is still boring to hear from
wellbeing presenters who don’t know us and don’t know our school”.
I believe this student has much to lead us in the right direction. Wellbeing sessions need to support real
life with a focus on having conversations about topics that resonate with the students involved in them.
In this they can usefully guide students to a deeper understanding, awareness and ability to live well
through interactive, autonomous collaboration. Students do not want to be ‘taught wellbeing’ but they
can certainly be encouraged to consider and develop wellbeing for themselves. This means that guided
conversations about all aspects of how best to lead life well could, in theory, be helpful.
It is of course important to then consider which aspects of life are most usefully put forward for
discussion. The simple solution here, is to ask… Rather than considering a list of established topics, we need to consider what topics are meaningful for
the people in the room, at any given time. This means it is vital that we discover the questions, before
we try and provide the answers. It would be considered sheer madness for a GP to hand out a
treatment plan before they had sought a diagnosis. Yet, how often do we decide to support staff and
student wellbeing before we have taken the time to understand what works, what challenges and what
needs to be supported?
A carefully led wellbeing audit will uncover the best of the best within a school context, the unique
challenges diminishing wellbeing and the desired and required needs of the community for growth.
Once done, a wellbeing audit will give rise to all sorts of topics that could be the basis of meaningful and
relevant discussions in timetabled wellbeing sessions.
These sessions can also usefully involve organic, real-world activities supporting social and emotional
learning and connection, and that means ‘play’. Play is an essential tool for social-emotional learning in
people of all ages. Consider the raft building weekends favoured by coporate retreats in times past, the
all-encompassing imaginary play of early learners, or the joy of a casual lunch-time game of a favoured
sport. Team building exercises that incorporate a focus on safety, inclusion and acceptance, provide a
powerful opportunity to build team cohesion as well as increased social and emotional competencies for
all. There is much to learn through skilled collaboration, shared challenge and shared accomplishments.
All forms of age-appropriate play can support social and emotional learning. In particular, for older
students and adults, playing sport is a great way to develop social and emotional skills, to learn about
risk and to build capacity for resilience. It is important however, to ensure that the sport is always
played in a respectful, supportive and equitable way; with a clear prioritizing of fair play over winning at
all costs.
Embracing opportunities to connect with nature can also be a highly valuable use of set wellbeing time.
This may mean a ramble in the park, creating a nature scape in a home room, or hanging plants in a
multi-purpose classroom. We are hard wired to connect with the natural world. Nature can teach us
much about how to be a competent person, and how to live well. As I have said many times, it greatly
concerns me that young people only interact with nature for a fraction of the time that their parents did
when they were young.

So to summarize, and more succinctly answer the question about the best use of a wellbeing session, I
propose the following:
• First and foremost – be flexible knowing that the best use of a wellbeing session will ultimately
be unique within every unique school context.
• Always begin by asking students (and staff) what they understand to be the best value for a
session. Ask them what they like about school life, what challenges them and what they want to
focus on developing.
• Support the development of real-world understanding and connection through guided
interactive discussion on topics that resonate with the room.
• Support ‘play’ with social activities that build social and emotional competency, and an ability to
connect with the world. Be this a fun game of sport, getting out into nature or building spaghetti
towers in the classroom.
Ultimately, contextual wellbeing supports our relationships with the world around us, which in turn
helps us to build healthy relationships with others and with ourselves. We learn to develop and
navigate our relationships when we are living in healthy social contexts that meet our core needs. This
organic process of contextually supported development can be enhanced with guided discussions,
exploration and play.
Learning to be with others matters. Afterall, life is with others, especially life in schools.
The WA Positive Schools Big Workshop still has some places remaining – register via the website if you
are an educator who would like to attend.
If you want to find out more about how to build contextual wellbeing in your staff or whole-school
community, where ever you are in the world, then get in touch via our website, LinkedIn or by email.

Register for the Western Australia and Hong Kong events here

PositiveSchools.com
PositiveSchools.com.au
HelenStreet.com
@helenstreet