Well-Being in Schools: 4 Steps to Building an Approach to Well-Being in Your School
A focus on subjective well-being and school life satisfaction is practical, measurable, and comprehensive and gives schools an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of young people.
– International Baccalaureate Organization
INTRO
The International Baccalaureate (IB) suggests that a well-being policy is one of the most effective means for improving students’ attainment outcomes. The current paper is meant to support IB teachers and school leaders in better understanding and integrating well-being into the architecture of their school policy and practice as part of successful implementation of IB programs.
This paper is the first policy research paper in a series on student well-being in IB World Schools. In this resource, the paper provides practical guidance to schools for developing a context-specific well-being policy.
OBJECTIVES
- Apply the 4 steps outlined here to brainstorm and then build your school’s approach to well-being
Building an approach to well-being in your school
Research has shown that an integrated, comprehensive school well-being policy is more likely to be effective than ad hoc measures in response to an individual student being overwhelmed with stress and anxiety.
Likewise, embedding well-being into curriculum, practices, and school life seems to be more effective than implementing well-being as an “add-on feature”.
A whole-school approach ensures that all components of the school organization work coherently together, engaging the whole community, including pupils, teachers, parents and community stakeholders.
On the other hand, targeted well-being programs consistent with each school context are likely to have a more substantial impact than “universal” types of interventions. Each school may have particular characteristics and understandings concerning student well-being; therefore, your school well-being policy and practices may be unique.
Step 1. Acknowledge the importance of well-being in your school
- Why does well-being matter in your context?
- For whom is well-being important in your school, and why?
- What evidence is there to ground the state of well-being in your school?
- What are the areas of development where well-being may have an impact?
Step 2. Define well-being in your context
- How do various stakeholders in your school define well-being?
- What is common and what is different in the way well-being is defined?
- What are the dreams and triggers for well-being in your school?
Step 3. Map the well-being influencers in your school
- What factors support or challenge well-being in your school?
- What are the factors that can potentially add value for a future well-being policy?
- What are the domains that concern you the most regarding well-being: systems and structures, relationships, teaching and learning, or environment?
Step 4. Measure and compare well-being in your school against relevant benchmarks
- What types of measurements and tools are available in your context?
- How do these tools relate to your school’s definition of well-being?
- Why, and what, do you particularly need to measure in order to better understand the well-being reality in your school?
Responses