Available to girls from Prep 6 to Year 13, Flourishing at School is a cloud based software platform for schools that want to excel at whole school wellbeing.
The programme is based on leading psychologist Martin Seligman’s work on PERMA (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishments) and has already proven incredibly successful in Australia.
Rather than seeking to identify those who are distressed, or potentially “at risk”, this innovative programme takes this positive psychology approach to help students develop the ‘pillars’ of good mental health to stay well and optimise quality of life.
Through surveys and regular check-ins, it aims to identify top contributors to each girl’s wellbeing. The results will inform each student’s individualised pastoral care plan as well as conversations between girls and their tutors focussed on the development of wellbeing knowledge and behaviours.
Deputy Head, Miss Deb Freeman said: “This platform gives us an additional layer to the existing excellent pastoral support we already offer at Truro High School. It gives the girls the opportunity to take responsibility for their own wellbeing as they can see which aspects of need to be improved. The programme gives them personalised feedback but also gives us an understanding about what areas we need to focus on in PSHE lessons to support the girls.”
In response to the move the school has made to online learning, THS has now included the option for students to complete daily 30-second wellbeing checks to identify areas of concern due to their changed circumstances and possible solutions.
Miss Freeman continued: “The new wellbeing check-in will help the girls to track their mood so they can put strategies in place to help to keep them healthy and happy so they are able to flourish. This programme is especially important now as they do not have the usual support they would have from their teachers and friends and if they are able to identify what is causing any anxiety, they can use the resources to help them through any difficult times. It also signposts them to people in the school that can help them.”
