Assistant principal Eva Brennan, Year 4 students Izayah Bailey, Audrey Murphy and disability inclusion and wellbeing staff Fiona Crosier.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
At Shepparton East Primary School, wellbeing isn’t an add-on to the school day, it’s the foundation everything else is built on.
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The program is fostered around the school’s four core values: care for yourself, care for others, care for learning and care for your school.
These values aren’t just posters on a wall, they shape daily practice, so all students and staff leave on a positive note.
Eva Brennan, who is wearing yet another one of her hats, helps lead to school’s wellbeing program and explains its philosophy simply: wellbeing comes first, learning follows.
“If students have a strong sense of belonging to school and wellbeing, then learning will come after that,” she said.
“They feel safe and secure.”
Disability inclusion and wellbeing staff member Fiona Crosier aids in the rollout of this programs which draws on several evidence-based approaches.
Through an affiliation with The Resilience Project, students are guided to build resilience and gratitude.
Mindfulness practices help students calm down and get ready to learn, while respectful relationships, which is part of the curriculum, is taught explicitly across the school.
A dedicated team of six staff members lead the work, with teachers across the school trained to implement the strategies into their own classrooms each week.
“It’s a weekly thing where we explicitly teach it weekly, but then it’s intertwined in the curriculum daily,” Mrs Brennan said.
“We do check-ins each morning, and check-outs at the end of the day, sharing something good that happened that day.”
For students going through a tough time, a social group offers regular check-ins and tailored support strategies, ensuring no-one falls through the cracks.
Inclusion sits at the centre of this program.
With a diverse student population, staff are committed to seeing every child as a whole person, forming genuine connections that go far beyond the classroom.
“It’s important to be able to form those connections and think about the child as a whole person as well,” Mrs Brennan said.
And for Mrs Brennan, the work all comes back to something simple.
“I just hope that they can go into the world and be good citizens who are kind and can give back,” she said.
“If I can help build good citizens in the world and support them though the school’s programs and our chats, that’s pretty special to me.”
As Shepparton East celebrates 150 years, that spirit, of supporting the whole child, not just the student, remains at the very heart of what the school is all about.
BY Brynne Timewell
Foundation students Curtis Davis and Makenzie Wadeson.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
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