Sentral Wellbeing helps address a key professional teaching standard; to know students and how they learn.
Addressing key professional standards
The first, and perhaps most fundamental of the Australian Professional Teaching Standards is to“know students and how they learn”. Without this knowledge, achieving effective learning outcomes simply becomes more difficult for any teacher. As Kylie Fabri, Deputy Principal at Callaghan College Wallsend Campus explains, Sentral Wellbeing provides the foundation upon which to begin building a body of knowledge about all students at the college.
With over 1100 students at the Wallsend Campus, gathering useful data about students is a streamlined and simple process with Sentral Wellbeing. Staff can record information easily to a centralised system that enables colleagues to quickly and accurately access student records and progress. Even amongst the largest of student populations, Sentral Wellbeing allows all students to be ‘known’ and experience a sense ofbelonging.
A holistic view of students
Schools are complex places, often with large student numbers. This makes knowing each student completely a significant task for any deputy or wellbeing administrator. However, as Kylie describes, Sentral Wellbeing takes a holistic view, encompassing aspects including educational outcomes, attendance, medical, behaviour and social factors. The collection of this information builds a profile for each student. Profiles can then be used to identify trends and strategies forindividuals, groups and cohorts.
Kylie maintains that Sentral Wellbeing enables staff to proactively manage the data, rather than reactively. At Callaghan, this has led to a more inclusive model for the whole school community, including family, teachers andthe students. Sentral Wellbeing helps address a key professional teaching standard; to know students and how they learn.
Leadership that values human factors
Callaghan College recognises the importance of human factors to address a key standard focus: the "physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students."
As such, Kylie and her team work to ensure that leadership guides all staff towards quality data entry that is relevant and appropriate. The centralised nature of Sentral Wellbeing allows her to follow up on issues quickly, ensuring that human contact remains a key part of all wellbeing interactions.
Kylie insists that staff are the managers of the system. Sentral Wellbeing therefore operates seamlessly in the background, providing opportunity for staff to address individual matters or collaborate on more complex situations. In some cases, Sentral Wellbeing identifies areas for staff professional development as wellbeing issues are worked through.
"“It allows us to meet the needs of students better than we ever could before.”"
Behaviour categorisation targeted to local needs
Each school is unique and will address wellbeing in terms of its own culture and tradition. To reflect this, Sentral Wellbeing is highly configurable to local needs. For Callaghan College, this process is owned by the staff, and all have had input into how behaviours and interactions are categorised. Kylie describes this as a “co-owned language” that can be used between staff and students. This shared language has helped to develop a stronger sense of community and improved wellbeing outcomes.
Evaluation is also a critical and ongoing process. At Callaghan College, Kylie was able to easily configure and adjust Sentral Wellbeing after collaborative efforts with staff to describe and quantify the core values of the college. The ability to continually tailor Sentral Wellbeing means that there is no disruption to the process of recording information. Student profiles remain accessible at all times, giving teachers the information they need, when they need it.
In a world of ever-increasing complexity and challenges, Sentral Wellbeing provides an essential toolkit to effectively manage students’ physical, social and intellectual development.
