Wellbeing

Life Skills GO, is a program that empowers student voice through technology, helping our staff drive better outcomes by providing evidence-based wellbeing data from our students.

Our Vision:
Every child is seen, heard, and supported to thrive in life.

Life Skills GO is an innovative wellbeing platform built for the K-12 students, providing real-time and crucial wellbeing data, metrics, insights, and reports along with evidence-based, trauma-informed, and curriculum-aligned resources to our school. This enables our teachers to make informed, data-driven decisions regarding whole class wellbeing, ensuring that every student is empowered, and every teacher is equipped to support them.

Strong Minds

Strong Minds is a whole school approach to character development and emotional and mental wellbeing. It promotes social-emotional learning in students, helping them develop self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills, all of which are vitally important for school, work and life outcomes.

Social-emotional learning develops understanding and skills to:

• nurture a positive sense of self
• promote respectful relationships
• build capacity to manage emotions, behaviours and interactions with others.

Through Growing Strong Minds, students learn about the 24 character strengths and look at ways to develop and grow these strengths.

Life Education at Glossodia Public School

In our community at Glossodia Public School, we hold a deep belief that every child deserves the chance to not just survive but truly thrive, equipped with the knowledge and confidence to navigate life's twists and turns. That's why we engage with Life Education every two years, an organization that's been transforming young lives for over 40 years by bringing vital health, safety, and wellbeing education right to our doorstep. Through their innovative mobile learning centers, like the iconic vans that roll onto our playground.

We know the magic happens early: those formative years when children absorb core values like kindness, resilience, and self-care, shaping who they'll become. By tackling tomorrow's challenges today, whether it's building habits to prevent chronic diseases or equipping kids with tools to safeguard their mental health, we're sowing seeds for a brighter, healthier future. Our students participate in lessons that teach them real-life skills: from understanding nutrition and physical activity to navigating online safety, bullying, and emotional wellbeing. It's all about empowering them to make smarter choices that ripple through their lives, fostering not just knowledge, but a holistic sense of confidence and joy.

At Glossodia Public School, we are deeply committed to ensuring that all students have the knowledge, confidence, and skills to protect themselves physically, emotionally, and sexually. As part of their learning students will participate in the mandatory subject of Child Protection as directed by the NSW Department of Education.

These lessons are critical in equipping students with the understanding they need to recognise unsafe situations, seek help from trusted adults, and know the difference between discipline and abuse. When children are taught the correct terminology and empowered with knowledge, they are better able to protect themselves and communicate clearly if they ever experience harm. Knowledge is power, and we want every student to feel safe, supported, and confident in speaking up.

Why Are These Lessons Mandatory?

Over 20 years ago, when parents were asked to provide permission for their children to participate in these lessons, reports of child abuse in all forms dramatically increased. Tragically, many of these cases could have been prevented or minimised if students had previously been given the language and knowledge to express what was happening to them. By ensuring all students receive this essential education, we are helping to safeguard them from potential harm.

What Will Be Covered?

The PDHPE program covers important topics such as:

• Understanding safe and respectful relationships
• Correct terminology used for both female and male body parts
• Personal safety and recognising unsafe situations
• The importance of seeking help from trusted adults
• The difference between discipline and abuse

Lessons will be taught in a developmentally appropriate and sensitive manner, reinforcing the role of parents and caregivers in these conversations. We encourage you to continue these discussions at home, helping your child feel comfortable and confident in speaking up if they ever need help.

Interrelate

Glossodia PS offers families the opportunity to access the Interrelate Program every 2 years.  A qualified educator delivers the program after ours at school. There is one session available for students in Years 3 & 4 and another for students in Years 5 & 6.  It is important to note that Year 3-6 students can attend both sessions for one family fee.

The program focuses on:

• Discuss the male and female reproductive systems, foetal development and the birth process
• Sexual intercourse & conception including assisted
• Personal safety and protective behaviours
• Discuss the physical changes of puberty, emphasising that it can be different for everyone
• Develop students’ understanding of periods and sperm production, as well as the physical, emotional, social and intellectual changes associated with puberty for both boys and girls
• Enhance awareness of children’s personal safety and protective behaviours

Families walk away with knowledge and confidence to continue the discussion at home.

Peer Support

The Peer Support Program is a whole-of-school student wellbeing program available to schools across Australia.

The program involves senior students being trained as Peer Leaders, and leading small groups of younger students in weekly structured sessions.

Peer Support is supported by 50 years of practise and research. And our program is endorsed by state education departments. Our students continue their connections with each other by having lunch together once a week for a catch up or to discus any issues they might be having.

Kindergarten Buddies

At its essence, our Kindergaten Buddy program is designed to develop a sense of belonging, weaving seamlessly into our school ethos of fostering emotional security and social confidence right from day one. For our Kindergartners, many arriving with wide eyes and tentative hearts, the presence of a buddy eases their faces and routines, from lining up for assembly to exploring the sandpit, building a foundation of trust that mirrors the restorative practices we've embedded to support our diverse learners.

For the older buddies, it's a lesson in empathy and responsibility, extending our distributive leadership model to the youngest mentors in our midst. These Year 6 students don't just support, they grow, practicing patience as they model kindness during recess games or celebrate a Kindy's first painted masterpiece, all while recognising their own social skills and sense of purpose.

I Belong Week

At Glossodia Public School, our annual 'I Belong Week' is a vibrant, student-led celebration of diversity, inclusion, and connection, designed to reinforce our values of respect, resilience, and collaboration while helping every child feel valued in our community. We measure success through pre- and post-event surveys tracking belonging ("I feel like I belong at Glossodia PS"), wellbeing data, and staff reflections, extending into peer support, storytelling sessions and a positive lasting impact.