We have to nourish in order to flourish.

Wellbeing at St Peter’s Woodlands is defined as a state of positive attitude enabling not just our students but our community and staff to succeed and flourish through evidence-based programs, enabling them to be healthy, safe and learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.

In order to support the wonderful staff at SPW to flourish, the start of Term 3 saw a focus on wellbeing. St Peter’s Woodlands staff came together on the pupil free day for a day solely focused on their wellbeing.

We started off our staff wellbeing day with TEDx speaker and creator of the Giggle Game, Annie Harvey. As a former teacher, Annie was able to weave her story of teacher wellbeing into really short, simple and practical tools that we can use moment by moment on a daily basis. We took away that we don’t have to wait until the weekend to fill our cup and how important it is for us to role model good emotional and mental health to our students.

Prior to our wellbeing day, all staff completed the VAI Character Strengths survey to further understand their strengths.  Using these, Annie gave us activities to look at what is strong, not wrong, and we carried this knowledge of our own and our peers character strengths into our small group activities in the afternoon.

All staff were put into a wellbeing group, with likeminded character strengths, and planned an activity to fill their own bucket in the afternoon.  Mini golf, walks on the beach, clay art work, wine tasting, lunch, coffee and cycling along the esplanade were just some of the activities our staff got up to.

These groups will continue to support each other’s wellbeing during the year with different opportunities to engage and collaborate encouraged. Did you notice your child’s teachers had a little bounce in their step on the first day of Term 3?