Wellbeing Programs
Student Engagement and Wellbeing
At Boroondara Park Primary School, we prioritise social and emotional wellbeing through our safe and supportive learning environment, evidence-based strategies, our curriculum programs, and whole-school community engagement. To support this, we are implementing the Visible Wellbeing Framework to oversee our wellbeing program.
Visible Wellbeing Framework
Visible Wellbeing (VWB) is a whole school approach to wellbeing, combining the science of wellbeing with the science of learning to achieve the three key goals of:
- Helping students and staff to more clearly see their own and others’ wellbeing using VWB practices,
- Helping students and staff more systematically build wellbeing using the SEARCH framework, and,
- Facilitating learning through the Visible Wellbeing Classroom process.
The program is underpinned by an evidence-based framework called SEARCH. This framework covers 6 pathways to wellbeing:
- Strengths
- Emotional
- Management
- Attention and
- Awareness
- Relationships
- Coping
- Habits and Goals.
Start Up
Start Up is the establishment phase of setting up our classrooms and learning spaces. A range of activities is implemented to promote a positive classroom climate and develop a sense of identity and community.
The Start Up program incorporates the agreed-upon Rights and Responsibilities of our school community.
Zones of Regulation
The Zones of Regulation is a social-emotional learning curriculum created to teach children self-regulation and emotional control.
All the different ways children feel and the states of alertness they experience are categorised into four coloured zones – Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red. The simple, common language and visual structure of The Zones of Regulation helps make the complex skill of regulation more concrete for learners and those who support them.
Respectful Relationships
Respectful Relationships is a Department of Education and Training initiative and is part of our whole school approach to wellbeing at Boroondara Park Primary School.
Respectful Relationships education is a core component of the Victorian Curriculum from Foundation to Year 12 in all Government schools. The Royal Commission into Family Violence identified the critical role that schools and early childhood education have in creating a culture of respect to change the story of family violence for future generations.
Everyone in our community deserves to be respected, valued and treated equally. We know that changes in attitudes and behaviours can be achieved when positive attitudes, behaviours and equality are embedded in our education settings. This evidence-based approach leads to positive impacts on students’ academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students.
In the primary years, Respectful Relationships is taught as part of the Health and Physical Education and Personal and Social Capability areas of the Victorian Curriculum. The curriculum supports schools in promoting and modelling respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. It teaches our students how to build healthy relationships, develop resilience and foster confidence.
The supporting teaching and learning materials have been developed by world-leading experts from the University of Melbourne. These age-appropriate resources align with the Victorian Curriculum and include lesson plans and activities that help students learn and practise social skills, applying them in a positive way to learning, life, and relationships.
We strongly value the partnership we have with our families and aim to foster this by embedding the Respectful Relationships initiative throughout our school community.
Care, Learn and Share (CLaS)
Care, Learn, and Share is our whole-school pastoral care program, designed to support students and foster strong connections across year levels.
Students form groups from Foundation to Year 6 and participate in a variety of activities based on social and emotional themes. The entire school is divided into groups, each led by a school staff member. The group membership remains the same from year to year, and the adult remains with the same group to develop strong bonds over the years that the children are in school. Each group consists of children from each grade level who meet every two weeks to participate in a variety of activities.
The focus of CLaS activities is centred around building respectful relationships, promoting student engagement and wellbeing, and developing social skills. Groups participate in a variety of activities, including crafts, gardening, discussions, and games.
PIVOT
The PIVOT platform enables staff to focus on student voice, through feedback via student perception and wellbeing surveys.
Pivot is a tool designed to measure, track and support student wellbeing. It enables schools to monitor students’ wellbeing and the factors that affect it through surveys of students and weekly check-ins throughout the term.
Staff use the data from the surveys to take proactive steps to support student readiness to learn and promote positive wellbeing.
Staff use the data from the surveys to take proactive steps to support student readiness to learn and promote positive wellbeing.
Student Voice, Agency and Leadership
The Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0)
FISO 2.0 is the continuous improvement framework for all Victorian government schools.
FISO 2.0 comprises:
- the 2 outcomes of learning and wellbeing,
- the 5 core elements of leadership, teaching and learning, assessment, engagement, and,
- support and resources.
These are underpinned by 10 dimensions that indicate priority areas of practice to improve students’ learning and wellbeing. At BPPS these aspects of developing our students into independent, forward thinking, ‘world ready’ young people are central to our practice. The school has a Student Engagement and Wellbeing Learning Specialist who facilitates best practice and collaboratively leads initiatives across these concepts, alongside their work with our school’s wellbeing initiatives, activities and programs.
Student voice is not simply about giving students the opportunity to communicate ideas and opinions; it is about students having the power to influence change. Authentic student voice offers students opportunities to collaborate and make informed decisions effectively.
Student agency refers to the level of autonomy and power that students experience in the learning environment. Student voice and agency are intrinsically linked. Agency gives students the power to direct and take responsibility for their learning, creating independent and self-regulating learners.
Student leadership is not confined to a small group of individuals, as leadership potential is inherent within all learners. Student leadership involves listening to and clarifying the issues of the students they represent and advocating on their behalf. Student leaders have a heightened sense of responsibility to help others and to exemplify leadership principles and values.
How are These Skills Embedded into Teaching and Learning at BPPS?
Students Taking Ownership over their Learning
In our classrooms, we see our students taking ownership of their learning journeys in a variety of ways, including:
- Co-designing appropriate learning goals with their teacher,
- Classroom examples, class discussions, feedback on teaching and learning,
- Student mentoring and peer support,
- Students work with teachers to develop learning goals or future learning,
- Teachers consistently use formative assessment to inform teaching and provide meaningful feedback,
- Collaborating to generate student-centred success criteria for learning tasks,
- Providing feedback to their peers and teachers in a guided, supportive environment,
- The opportunity to take part in student forums to offer feedback on learning programs,
- Co-construction of classroom responsibilities and rights with their teacher and peers, and
- Having the desire and ability to present their understanding and learning progression through a variety of modes and mediums.
Students Leadership
Student leadership at Boroondara Park is leading the way in terms of evidence based good practice, whereby all of our students have the opportunity to lead. Key aspects of student leadership including teaching leadership skills explicitly, promoting collaborative learning, providing opportunities for real life responsibility, focusing on inclusive leadership, embracing student voice and agency and modelling effective leadership.
In the junior school this may be through representing their class as part of our Junior School Council, or in a learning environment where the guided inquiry delivery of Integrated studies allows them to lead the direction of their learning and to collaborate effectively in teams.
In grade 5, all our students are members of the ‘Keen Green Team’ and are tasked with running the school’s sustainability program, again through teacher-supported guided inquiry.
Every student in grade 6 is a student leader. This model maximises student engagement at this transitional stage in both education and life. Through a rigorously structured program, our grade 6 students are equipped with the tools to provide meaningful service to their community as leaders. The students adapt the mode of leadership on an annual basis to best reflect the current needs of their school, align themselves with an area of service that best suits their interests and skill set and then work to deliver positive change during their year in office.
Leadership Pillars
The current incarnation of the model sees our students supporting the Six Pillars of BPPS:
- Health
- Arts
- Environment
- Administration and Communication
- Library and Languages
- Wellbeing
Our leaders are allocated class time each week in order to work on their areas of interest.
Key components of their remit include the preparation, presentation and input into our whole community assemblies, the preparation and delivery of lessons within the Care, Learn and Share pastoral care program, input into structure and help setting up school events such as Junior School Athletics, Multicultural Day, and embracing specific projects that relate to improvement strategies for our school.
Join Our BPPS Community
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Enrolments for Foundation 2026 are now open.
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