HEALTH & WELLBEING // MACKILLOP INSTITUTE
ReLATE positions schools to create safe, supportive and predictable teaching and learning environments.
Transition is change – supporting children and young people in times of transition WITH THE SCHOOL YEAR COMMENCING AND THE ADAPTION OF OUR THINKING AND BEHAVIOURS AMID THE OMIRCON VIRUS IN AUSTRALIA, CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE ARE LEARNING MORE ABOUT THEMSELVES EVERY DAY WHEN IT COMES TO ADAPTING IN THE FACE OF CHANGING CONDITIONS.
As teachers work hard to create safe and predictable environments for their students, external to school factors can have a positive or negative impact on students depending on how they handle adversity and the supports in place during this time. Ben Sacco, National Lead – Program Development and Implementation, talks to Education Matters about how transition times can create stress for children and discusses strategies to help reduce the overwhelming nature of change. “Whether it be walking through the school gates for the first time as a new Prep student,
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starting Grade 4 at the same school as the year before, moving interstate due to family relocation or entering a school for the first time as a Year 11 student. Simply put, what comes with these scenarios is the need for the conditions around the individual to be one of psychological and physiological safety,” he says. “Feeling safe keeps us calm and minimising the possibility of a heightened stress response triggered by the absence of well thought-out and implemented transition strategies is just one of many goals of our Reframing Learning and Teaching Environments model at The MacKillop Institute.”
education matters secondary
Sacco says one key strategy schools could implement to reduce stress caused by change is providing clear information about the day or week ahead for students. For example, this could be done through letters to students or parents explaining the structure of the day or week or a short form school handbook that helps to identify key things one needs to know. “In times of change, not having clarity or an understanding of what is coming next can send a signal to our bodies that we feel unsafe and therefore through the activation of our stress response, we respond with fight or
