Positive Education

Positive Psychology is a research and evidence-based branch of human psychology that focuses on an individual’s character development that enhances social, emotional, academic, professional and civic growth to enable a person to thrive.

Why introduce Positive Education?

Psychological studies have demonstrated that an optimistic outlook can be taught to school students. By encouraging our School community to focus on “what is going well” in life, enhances social and emotional growth, academic outcomes and, above all, allows all students to thrive.

What does the Positive Education program aim to achieve?

Positive Education aims to produce well-rounded and resilient individuals who possess a unique capability to thrive personally, academically and professionally and who are well-equipped to contribute to society in a satisfying and meaningful way. Positive Education is not a solution to every problem but helps to develop life skills for positive living beyond the classroom.

What are the benefits of Positive Education?

Positive Education is the foundation that enables every student to become a gracious, thoughtful, productive and meaningful citizen who will continue to thrive in all aspects of their lives.

Positive Education is the framework that supports our Pre-Prep to Year 12 Pastoral Care and Wellbeing Program. The program focuses on providing students and staff with the skills needed to manage and cope with everyday opportunities and challenges in our ever-changing world.

All staff and students participate in a range of explicit and implicit programs, initiatives and activities that focus on mindfulness, journaling, gratitude and optimism to promote an innate understanding, acknowledgement and appreciation of their personal character strengths.

Our strengths-based approach focuses on six Educational Domains and 24 universally and morally accepted character strengths.

Six Educational Domains:

1. Positive Relationships
   The Positive Relationships domain recognises the importance of connectedness and thriving relationships. It helps students to develop social and emotional skills that nourish relationships with self and others.
2. Positive Emotion
   The Positive Emotion domain focuses on the importance of helping students to anticipate, initiate, experience, prolong and build positive emotional experiences as well as how to respond to negative emotions in a healthy way.
3. Positive Health
   The Positive Health domain focuses on helping students develop sustainable habits for optimal physical and psychological health that are developed from a sound knowledge base.
4. Positive Engagement
   The Positive Engagement domain focuses on helping students understand and experience complete immersion in activities as peak experiences through understanding the nature of engagement, the pathways to it and the function it has in individual wellbeing.
5. Positive Accomplishment
   The Positive Accomplishment domain aims to develop individual potential through striving for and achieving meaningful outcomes.
6. Positive Purpose
   The Positive Purpose domain involves understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefit of others.

 

There are six Educational Domains and 24 Character Strengths associated with the Positive Education Program. Character Strengths are the positive ingredients that make up an individual and each Character Strength has been assigned to an Educational Domain. Each Character Strength also has a corresponding symbol that sits within our Positive Education Tree.

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS - CHARACTER STRENGTHS:

KINDNESS (generosity) is akin to nurturing, care, compassion, altruistic love and niceness. It is doing
favours and good deeds for others, helping them and caring for them.

LOVE (capacity to love and be loved) valuing close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated, being close to people.

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE (friendship, emotional intelligence, personal intelligence) being aware
of the motives and feelings of other people and oneself, knowing what to do to fit into different
social situations, knowing what makes people tick.

POSITIVE EMOTION - CHARACTER STRENGTHS:

APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY (appreciation of excellence, awe, wonder, elevation) noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in various
domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday experience.

GRATITUDE being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen, taking time to express thanks.

HOPE (optimism, future-mindedness, future orientation) expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it.

HUMOUR (playfulness) liking to laugh, bringing smiles to other people, seeing that light side, making but not necessarily telling jokes.

BELIEF (spirituality, sense of purpose, faith) having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe, knowing where one fits within the larger scheme, having beliefs about the meaning of life that shapes conduct and provides comfort.

POSITIVE HEALTH - CHARACTER STRENGTHS

FORGIVENESS (mercy, compassion) forgiving those who have done wrong, accepting the shortcomings of others, giving people a second chance, not being vengeful.

MODESTY (humility) letting one’s accomplishments speak for themselves, not regarding oneself as more special than one is.

PRUDENCE (caution, discretion) being careful about one’s choices, not taking undue risk, not saying or doing things that might later be regretted.

SELF-CONTROL (self-regulation) controlling what one feels and does, being disciplined, controlling one’s appetites and emotions

POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT - CHARACTER STRENGTHS

TEAMWORK (citizenship, loyalty, social responsibility) working well as a member of a group or team, being loyal to the group, doing one’s share.

FAIRNESS (capacity, justice, equity) Treating all people the same according to notions of fairness, not letting personal feelings bias decisions about others, giving
everyone a fair chance.

LEADERSHIP encouraging a group of which one is a member to get things done and at the same time
maintain good relations within the group, organising group activities and seeing that they happen.

POSITIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT - CHARACTER STRENGTHS

CREATIVITY (ingenuity, originality) thinking of novel and productive ways to conceptualise and do things, including artistic achievement.

CURIOSITY (interest in the world, novelty seeking, openness to experience) taking an interest in an ongoing experience for its own sake, finding subjects and topics fascinating, exploring and discovering.

OPEN-MINDEDNESS (judgement, critical thinking) thinking things through and examining them from all
sides, not jumping to conclusions, being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence, weighing all evidence fairly.

LOVE OF LEARNING mastering new skills, topics, and bodies of knowledge, whether on one’s own or formally, obviously related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.

PERSPECTIVE (wisdom) being able to provide wise counsel to others, having ways of looking at the world that makes sense to oneself and to other people.

POSITIVE PURPOSE - CHARACTER STRENGTHS

HONESTY (authenticity, genuineness, integrity) speaking the truth but more broadly presenting oneself in a genuine way and acting in a sincere way, being without pretence, taking responsibility for one’s feelings and actions.

BRAVERY (valour, courage) not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty or pain, speaking up for what is right even if there is opposition, acting on convictions even if unpopular - including physical bravery but is not limited to it.

PERSISTENCE (industriousness, diligence, perseverance) finishing what one starts, persisting in course of action in spite of obstacles, taking pleasure in completing tasks.

ZEST (enthusiasm, vitality, energy, vigour) approaching life with excitement and energy, not doing things halfway or half-heartedly, living life as an adventure, feeling alive and activated.