Accredited Professional Development

Educators across Australia are raving about our Professional development courses. They offer effective and high quality training to support ongoing learning and development.

We believe that child and staff mental health is a huge priority in education. This sentiment is echoed by state governments.

That was without a doubt the best PD I’ve done for many years. Thank you for giving us a renewed sense of what wellbeing is and how to look after ourselves and our students. I am excited about what our next steps will be as a school and look forward to making a difference in the lives of our young people with the help of Grow Your Mind.

Melanie Bryden, Assistant Principal

Advanced Implementation (self-led as a group)

This bespoke Implementation refresher is for schools that have been using Grow Your Mind for over a year and are looking for an easy way to onboard new staff, review the foundations of Grow Your Mind, get inspired and enjoy one on one consulting to get a clear direction for the year. 

What is included:

  • 1 hour pre-recorded video for you to watch as a whole staff or individually (if that suits better)
  • 1 x 30 minute session with one of our Education team to talk through the direction of the year, including any focus areas, scope and sequence questions challenges and more.

Consent Education PD (self led)

Consent education is mandatory across all schools as of 2023. This is fantastic, but what does that mean for our already busy and overloaded educators?! Where do you begin?

You begin with our one-hour professional development!  And from there we have done the work for you with our comprehensive consent tile. 

The consent course aims to help you:

  • Know the golden rules of consent
  • Understand the building blocks necessary to be able to consent and ask for permission
  • Become familiar with our scope and sequence and lesson plans
  • Explore our consent tile of learning activities, songs, episodes and activities
  • Practice and play with some of the fantastic resources we have created 

This pre-recorded course is light, playful and provides numerous hands-on activities. Do it alone or at the same time as your colleagues. 

Whole school approach to social, emotional & wellbeing learning in the early years and primary school classroom (self led)

This is an outstanding 3 hour accredited professional learning course which aims for participants to appreciate & analyse the importance of developing social and emotional learning skills in EYLF & K- Year 6 setting.

Alongside stories and engaging information, participants will have opportunities for reflection questions & activities in their individual workbooks as well as links to fascinating research in the area. Participants will leave with resources they can use with their class and school community immediately.

 

Key topics covered in the course:

  1. Tools to build resilience in the classroom
  2. Explore how stress directly impacts the classroom environment & student academic performance
  3. Learn how to use and apply a variety of social, emotional & wellbeing strategies and tools into daily habits and embed them across the curriculum.
  4. Deep dive into character strength education and understand why having a strengths based approach to others and ourselves can boost resilience and wellbeing.
  5. Explore movement, exercise and sleep as fundamental to maintaining flourishing social and emotional learning

And more!

Intro to Teacher Wellbeing

Online Course – Time 2 hours

The goal of this online course is for any educator to discover, practice and hopefully be inspired to prioritise their own wellbeing. Using the latest research from the world of positive psychology, mindfulness and neuroscience we aim to keep the workshop engaging and playful.2 hours in duration which includes 1 hour of presentation time interwoven with 1 hour of reflection time via our supporting resources. 

Background

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

  • Understand stress, the good and the bad
  • Receive invitations on ways to flourish both at school and at home 
  • Begin to identify character strengths and personal values. Explore how these differ and ways to live by the values we determine
  • Dip into the world of neuroscience
  • Practice some mindfulness-based activities to help be less reactive to situations and unhelpful thinking patterns. 
  • Make a personal plan for the future based on invitations that resonated with each participant.

Individual & Whole School from $80

Staff Resilience

Online Course – Time 2 hours

Humans are wired to be resilient, however, as teachers we are not immune to feeling low in the good stuff at times!  School staff regularly experience high-stress levels and the feeling of overwhelm. The Teacher Resilience Course is an interactive and light hearted 2-hour online course made with love and compassion by a teacher as a gift for you as a teacher. The online workshop takes you through the latest research-based tools that are key components in building the resilience we all have within ourselves.

The course is run by co-founder Alice Peel. Alongside stories and engaging information, participants will have opportunities for reflection questions & activities in their individual workbooks as well as links to fascinating research in the area.

Key topics covered in the course:

  • The real Lord of the Flies and what it means for humanity
  • Myths and Truths of being resilient
  • Awe
  • Healthy relationships
  • Joy + Authentic Gratitude
  • Deep listening and slowing down
  • Challenging the Green-Eyed Monster
  • Embracing stuff-ups and feedback

Individual & Whole School from $80

Implementing Grow Your Mind

Online Course – Time 1 hour

This professional development course highlights how to embed + explicitly teach positive mental health strategies in the classroom and the school. We developed Grow Your Mind to make the life of a teacher easier when it comes to successfully teaching emotional wellbeing. This course explains how to make the most of our creations within the classroom and whole school environment.

Topics covered – 

1. Building brain awareness – introducing the Grow Your Mind animal characters 

2. Making wellbeing engaging through stories, playdough, podcasts, and meaningful micro-moments

3. Reclaiming the reputation of the Guard Dog ( the amygdala): is this a threat, a challenge, or an opportunity?

4. The importance of staff wellbeing, how to ‘live’ wellbeing as a member of staff.

5. Making the life of a teacher easier: a step by step guide of how to use our Digital for teachers subscription. Whether you are using this resource with under 5 minutes to spare or wishing to make the most of extensive units of work both in the health and literacy areas – we have you covered!

6. Hear from other teachers on elements of the Digital for teachers subscription. 

Individual & Whole School from $45

Helping kids feel resilient

Online Course – Time 1 hour

We all want our children and students to feel resilient, but short of telling them to be resilient, do we actually know how to cultivate resilience in them? This course is for any educator or parent who is wanting to be authentic and practical in their approach to growing resilience.

This course covers:

  • The brain and how it connects with positive coping skills
  • An introduction to our + 4 steps to feeling resilient
  • A playful analogy for growing optimism and challenging unhelpful thinking styles
  • An effective way to deal with one of the biggest causes of family stress
  • Stress reduction exercises

Individual & Whole School from $40

It’s going to be ok -Puberty and Adolescence

Online Course

Puberty and the path to adolescence is a time of enormous change in the brain. Known as a period of emotional storm and stress, of poor decision making and risky behaviour. On top of that, poor mental health starts to appear and the gender divide emerges, for every 3 cases of depression, 2 are young women. However, this is also a time of enormous learning potential. This means there is an opportunity for educators and parents to nurture, protect and build essential emotional closeness with the young people in their lives.

This course is for any educator or parent who is curious to learn more about supporting this period of exquisite learning for the children in their care. We dive into what we can and can’t control as educators and parents, linking it to neuroscience research and a fantastic model of brain health.

Topics covered include:

  • emotional regulation techniques
  • encouraging safe risks
  • positive reappraisal tips
  • encouraging body gratitude
  • cultivating emotional closeness
  • conflict resolution techniques and identifying what makes for a healthy friendship
  • sleep, exercise and self-compassion

Individual & Whole School from $40

Engaging Character Strength Education

Online Course – Time 1 hour

This 1-hour course is an exploration of how to create a positive classroom culture and increase resilience in your students via character strength education. We created this course to inspire educators to see the potential of strength spotting, quality children’s literature as well as the impact of stories and art.

Topics covered:

1. An introduction to character strength education.

2. Children’s books and their potential to further support character strength education. 

3.  Art + Awe + Stories! A look at our ‘Guess Who’ playdough character strength video series. We showcase how to make the most of this educational resource. Currently, there are 11 free educational videos (30 in our digital subscription) of real stories of setbacks, challenges, and loss and how people have flourished despite this. 

Individual & Whole School from $45

Using the Grow Your Mind Podcast

Online Course – Time 1 hour

This course walks school staff through the research and motivations behind each of the 14 FREE podcast episodes available to any person, anywhere in the world. Every episode is an offering to boost mental health, connection, and resilience. School staff will have opportunities to reflect on how this research applies to them personally + professionally. 

Topics Covered:

  • Research + reasons behind every positive mental health podcast episode + how to use the student reflection journals (ages 7 and up) alongside each of these.
  • What mental health is and is not, why the podcast offers a unique educational experience for students, staff members, and families
  • A summary of key positive mental health topics: joy, play, gratitude, respectful relationships, movement, courage, hope, benefit mindset, growth mindset, optimism, resilience, empathy + more!
  • Grief, gender + climate change. Why these subject areas were included in the podcast & their potential to affect mental health.

Individual & Whole School from $45

Staff Culture and Communication

Online Course – Time 2 hours

When teachers work well together, the whole school succeeds.

Teachers (and administrators) who feel good about coming to work, have healthy relationships with their colleagues, communicate & collaborate in a clear and kind manner, and who feel good about the work they do, will be more effective employees. They will bring a higher level of energy into the classroom, and they will demonstrate greater resiliency when confronted with adversity.

This course aims to help you:

  • Understand how important having a supportive & respectful workplace environment is to your mental health
  • Appreciate that school culture is created by the daily ACTIONS of everyone & is the RESPONSIBILITY of everyone associated with the school.
  • Explore the above & below the line behaviour & communication model
  • Practise having difficult conversations
  • Explore tips for working with difficult teammates
  • Learn and practise a feedback model – BOOST
  • Bond with teammates, have fun & build a strong team culture

Whole School groups from $375

Facilitated Workshops

Our most popular courses, Intro to Teacher Wellbeing, and its follow-on, Teacher Resilience, are also available as facilitated courses