About Wellbeing@School
The Wellbeing@School online application provides schools with self-review tools to build a safe and caring climate that deters bullying.
How to register
Your school can register for free by visiting Wellbeing at School Registration.
Features
The online application is designed around a self-review cycle and offers a range of tools:
- two W@S Student Surveys (Years 5-8 and 7-13)
- the W@S School Self Review Tool
- the W@S Teacher Survey
- next step planning modules and
- a comprehensive range of online survey reports.
The self review tools explore how different layers of school life contribute to creating a safe and caring climate.
Schools can use this application to confidentially store data, access reports of their data, find suggestions for next steps actions, and track changes over time.
All New Zealand schools can register to use the tools. The principal must agree to the terms of use for website and tools.
Inclusive Practices Tool
The Inclusive Practices Tool has been added to the Wellbeing@School website to give you access to:
- W@S surveys and tools which explore the extent to which a school is creating a safe and caring climate that deters bullying; and
- Inclusive (IPT) surveys and tools which explore the extent to which a school includes all students in all aspects of school life.
All current schools using the W@S website will be informed about minor changes to the Terms of Use (changes are indicated). The changes add Inclusive Practices Tool (IPT) to the current agreement.
The core aspects of the agreement stay the same: the data is owned by each school under NZCER stewardship; data reports can be made available to the Ministry of Education or other users if requested, however these reports are anonymous and school data is grouped.
Relating to Research
Research suggests that approaches that build students’ social and emotional (SE) skills and competencies (such as their ability to relate to others or engage in social problem-solving) are related to improvements across a range of student outcomes. For example, SE learning (SEL) opportunities are associated with increases in students’ social competencies and academic achievement as well as decreases in conduct problems such as bullying (e.g., Payton et al., 2008).
Some key teaching strategies can be effective in building students’ social and emotional skills and ability to resolve conflicts such as bullying behaviour (e.g., see (Farrington & Ttofi, 2009). These include the use of visual resources such as DVDs and videos to prompt discussion, and cooperative learning (when combined with other approaches).
Notes about research sources: Farrington & Ttofi ( 2009) meta-analysis noted that videos and cooperative learning were components of WSA associated with decreases in bullying.
Effective SEL approaches are described using the acronym (SAFE) (Payton et al., 2008).
For further information about Wellbeing at School read more about W@S website and tools, or contact us at wellbeing@nzcer.org.nz.