Student Wellbeing

The Hamilton and Alexandra College is an aspirational, regional community

where everyone is known, valued and challenged.

Knowing each and every student, their interests, goals, areas for development

and overall wellbeing is our number one priority.

Pastoral Care

The Pastoral Care system at College is made up of four Houses – Berry (red), Laidlaw (blue), Learmonth (gold) and Young (green).

Your House becomes your school family, with House and mentor meetings starting off each school day. Every student has a House mentor and Head of House, the Head of Middle Years and Senior Years and Deputy Principal Wellbeing all to them for support and direction.

At College, the staff work in partnership with families to achieve the best possible outcome for every student.

College has adopted Positive Education as a means of enhancing student wellbeing and outcomes.

The PERMAH model outlines our approach to pastoral care and support of students.

Wellbeing

Good health and wellbeing are at the heart of all facets of children’s experiences at The Hamilton and Alexandra College: academic, sporting, cultural, community engagement, and pastoral care. We seek to develop students in a holistic way, with a strong focus on wellbeing.

Wellbeing permeates our teaching programs and incorporates elements of the Positive Education Program and stems from the belief that it is only when we are at our best, that we can help others to be theirs. The explicit teaching is delivered in Wellbeing classes. Students are taught skills to enable them to thrive and flourish throughout their lives.

House Mentors

We seek to develop close relationships with families, through the House Mentors, who see their Mentees most mornings to act as advocates for each child in their care.

The Mentor is the first point of contact for parents and will work in close connection with the teachers to make sure your child is settled and enjoying their learning journey.

They ‘walk the second mile’ to make sure their mentees are looked after and grow under their care.

This relationship is vital and special. Middle Years students are closely monitored through the College’s wellbeing and academic programs.

Academic growth is tracked, and individual needs are monitored through regular assessment and online progress reporting.

Positive Education

Positive Psychology recognises many simple interventions that significantly influence our wellbeing. Research shows this has a beneficial impact on reducing depression, anxiety and other stresses.

Positive Psychology uses techniques that promote learning and wellbeing. We explicitly teach skills such as identifying and using character strengths and personal motivations, nurturing positive relationships, and building resilience.

Skills such as identifying and using character- strengths, nurturing positive relationships and building resilience, are just some of these powerful interventions.

We explicitly teach a range of Positive Education interventions, which are taught in classes and through mentor groups. We aim to making wellbeing visible.

Staff embrace the Positive Education approaches to learning and reinforce its key themes: love of learning, growth, optimism, hope, curiosity, grit, zest, relationships, gratitude, kindness, mindset and self-control.

The Permah Model

The PERMAH model was designed by Martin Seligman with six core elements of psychological wellbeing and happiness. Seligman believes that these six elements can help people reach a life of fulfillment, happiness, and meaning. This model can be used to develop programs to help people develop new cognitive and emotional tools to enhance their wellbeing.

PERMAH is a way to approach life and learning. This approach focuses on each student’s resilience and positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment. These critically important life skills and attributes can be learnt and can therefore be taught.

Wellbeing has six measurable elements (PERMAH) that count towards it:

Positive emotion

Feeling good helps us to perform better at work and study; it boosts our physical health; it strengthens our relationships and it inspires us to be creative, take chances, and look to the future with optimism and hope. Feeling good is contagious. Seeing smiles makes us want to smile. Hearing laughter makes us feel like laughing. Positive Psychology research has identified certain skills and exercises that can boost our experience of positive emotions. We can learn to focus on and cultivate positive emotions.

Engagement

Engagement in the activities in our lives is important for us to learn, grow and nurture our personal happiness.

Relationships

We enhance our wellbeing by building strong networks of relationships around us, with family, friends, neighbours and all the other people in our lives.

Meaning and purpose

We are at our best when we dedicate our time to something greater than ourselves.

Accomplishment

Creating and working toward goals helps us anticipate and build hope for the future. Past successes make us feel more confident and optimistic about future attempts. When you feel good about yourself, you are more likely to share your skills and secrets with others. You will be motivated to work harder and achieve more next time. It is important to set yourself tangible goals, and keep them in your sight.

Health

Nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, sleep and recovery.

Support Resources

The wellbeing of our whole school community is our priority.

In times of uncertainty, people can feel heightened stress and anxiety. This is true for all family members – parents and children. There are a number of websites listed below which are easy to use and have great resources to help us manage the stress levels at home or seek further advice if you are feeling overwhelmed. We will measure our success by how our young women and men serve their community now, and throughout their lives. We encourage you to click and visit the folllowing pages.