Student Wellbeing @ Otautau School

One of our board's goals this year is that staff will demonstrate strong wellbeing practices for their learners within the classroom. Within this goal we will be explicitly teaching a wide variety of wellbeing topics.

One topic that we will be covering this year is having a conversation around what bullying is and that bullying takes on many forms and can happen anywhere and anytime.

Before we undertake this topic of learning, we would like to send out to our community some background information around bullying so that you are able to understand where we will be coming from when our teaching begins.

Resilience is a word we hear a lot in today's society. We all experience situations where we have to be resilient and often the more we experience these situations the better we become at coping with challenges.

Simply defined - resilience can be characterised by the ability to bounce back from adversity (negative emotional experiences) and the ability to grow from challenges.

This term a number of classrooms have looked at resilience when they visited the Life Education bus. This would have been follow up with work and discussion in the classroom relating to resilience.

Resilience isn't a skill that we teach in just one term - rather it is a life-long skill that we will continue to have students develop as they move their way through the school.

[bully free NZ states that;]

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behaviour that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. Kids who bully use their power - such as physical strength, knowing something embarrassing, or popularity - to control or harm others. Bullying is when one student (or group of students) keeps picking on another student again and again to make them feel bad. They say or do mean things to upset them, make fun of them a lot, try to stop them joining in, or keep hitting or punching them.

Bullying can happen anywhere, at any time, and can be verbal, physical or emotional. It can happen in person or online, and it can be obvious or hidden.

Below is a poster outlining what Otautau School understand's as to what bullying is...

The link below is a great resource for families to have talking about what bullying is and what bullying isn't. It talks about why bullying happens and what types of bullying there are out there and how serious a problem it is.

If you wish to receive a paper copy of this resource then please contact the school and we can provide you with a copy.

After collating all your feedback in regards to our school model of wellbeing we have came up with five teaching themes (similar thoughts from staff and community) that will link through each Key Area of our model. The Key Cultural strand comes out of Te Kura Tapa Wha which looks at culturally responsive wellbeing practices. These strands of:

• Social wellbeing and Healthy Relationships
• Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
• Social Wellbeing and Healthy Relationships
• Physical Wellbeing
• Spiritual Wellbeing

all link really well with the Five Ways to Wellbeing (and not to mention our Health and Physical Education Curriculum).

Our teaching themes will also link closely with the teaching of our Tau Competencies.