Wellbeing and Learning - An interview with Helen Kelly (St Columba's College, Essendon)
Helen Kelly, Head of Learning at St Columba's College Essendon, believes that student wellbeing can be enhanced by innovative curriculum development. "I'm very interested in curriculum design with interesting tasks that engage the students and lead them to deeper understandings. This makes school a more enjoyable place for the students. My philosophy is that everybody should be happy at school. We should see happy faces on the students and teachers. Instead of racing through content the focus should be on getting relationships to develop. It's about teaching the child, not the content. That's when good learning happens."
Underpinned by this philosophy, the school undertook a review of learning at Years 7 and 8 to develop a new approach at these year levels. "Early in the process Claire Ryan interviewed Year 7 and 8 students. Having a student voice as part of our review helped to influence the findings. As a result of the review we came up with some key recommendations including a focus on relationships. At Year 7 there is a program called 'My Story' which is around the theme of identity, but it was also about getting the students to be more confident communicating using the multi-literacies. The students have had to do a series of activities on who they are and who is in their family. Through this they're able to identify who they are and articulate this to others, so we're getting a lot of fantastic interactions going and students are sharing things about themselves. This has made a huge difference to the cohort."
"There's been a lot of work breaking the students into smaller groups. One of our aims is to get the students to think independently while getting to know each other. Each student will know every other student in the year level by the end of the year. It's a structure that's promoting wellbeing by its inherent nature; the students work with each other and find out more about each other so that meaningful respectful relationships develop in the classroom."
"When we began the year we introduced our 'big idea' of sustainability. Every unit plan at 7 and 8 has to explicitly state which element of sustainability it's going to address. It fits VELS perfectly in the interdisciplinary strand. All of our new programs are supported by unit plans and VELS outcomes. One of our initial aims was that it had to be grounded in VELS."
The change in the format has been a popular move with the students. "The students absolutely love it. When we've interviewed students about it they've said things like 'it's hardly like being at school'. They enjoy the activities that are more open-ended. We often have a day when we have the whole cohort together and they spill out into the open spaces and they can go off into small groups and big groups and the teachers become more of a resource. There has also been a positive reaction to changes from parents."
"School is primarily about learning, and when you're engaged in something that's satisfying and challenging and you feel safe and there are good things happening around you, that produces a sense of wellbeing. You're not defined by the circumstances of your life. It's about building capacity so that young people are not trapped by the circumstances of their lives."
