Category: blog
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Mental health matters: the role wellbeing plays in the classroom.
How student wellbeing affects behaviours, performance and outcomes in the classroom. Childhoods today are filled with milestones. There’s the physical ones like crawling and walking. The communication ones like talking and waving. And there’s the ones focused around big life events, like starting kindergarten and school. From the moment a new baby is born their…
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Allies of change
by Kristina Freeman December 16, 2021 Reflections of another rather interesting year We release our 2021 Impact report I am one of the co-founders, Kristina, I am the director of social enterprises and I have been asked to write a blog on reflections from this year. Full disclosure: I would rather poke my eyeball than to do…
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The key to student wellbeing is…
by Alice Peel November 23, 2020 LOVE? NO! (although we are fans of the stuff) MONEY NO! (also fans) STAFF WELLBEING? YES! You can stop reading now. Still here? Need more convincing? Here…
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Everyone has mental health. Here’s how to help students take care of it.
5 ways to encourage positive mental health habits and practices with students. It can be very difficult for young people to navigate their way through the world. They need to learn how to deal with big feelings and new emotions, all while trying to make friends, experience new learning environments and manage their self image…
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A cultural shift in how we think about mental health
by Alice Peel October 14, 2021 Let us begin by saying: BRING IT ON! BRING ON the National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government’s National Mental Health Commission. BRING ON the fact that this is the first time a national government has developed a strategy that considers mental health and wellbeing…
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Does mental health + wellbeing education need its own swimming lane?
by Alice Peel October 1, 2021 Mental health and wellbeing tends to be tucked tidily into the PDHPE curriculum. This to date has highlighted to all that it is a requirement of Australian schools to teach mental wellbeing. However, as I sat and listened to Christine Morgan (the CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and National…
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A ticking emotional time bomb: being a school principal in 2021
by Alice Peel July 5, 2021 we meet serving the wide variety of schools that Grow Your Mind is in. Even if you are not a leader the reasons why this particular role may be stressful are glaringly obvious: Students! Parents! Staff! COVID-19! The ACU’s 2020 Principal’s Health and Wellbeing report found that our school leaders are not only overwhelmed by the…
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Primary school classrooms are where mental health education must begin
by Alice Peel May 12, 2021 Guess what the largest burden of disease effecting children aged 0-14 is? Mental health problems. In fact: 50% of adult mental health conditions begin by the age of 14 1 in 7 primary aged children are experiencing mental health problems today Society is experiencing major and rapid changes and this is…
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A FREE social + emotional wellbeing tool is waiting for your classroom
by Alice Peel March 8, 2021 Oral storytelling is as universal as it is ancient. Most of us grew up listening to the soothing, mesmerising, entertaining words and sounds of the voices closest to us. We know how the voice can bring a more personal, informal and often engaging touch to what is being said and…
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Building resilience in children with ordinary magic
by Alice Peel September 3, 2020 An artist residing in rural Victoria makes herself a cup of tea, heads into her studio and starts the detailed process of creating a portrait entirely out of playdough of someone remarkable. She started this ritual at the beginning of the pandemic. We know this because we asked her to…
