Wellbeing and Thrive

Students’ wellbeing is at the core of our comprehensive Thrive programme. We consider wellbeing through four lenses: social, emotional, physical and cognitive, and we provide opportunities for students to develop essential skills in each area.

Please click here to view the Thrive Handbook.

Our Thrive programme aims to:

  1. To ensure the safety of young people and give them the emotional intellect to protect themselves.
  2. To raise awareness and provide a range of wellbeing ideas to cater for the whole community. 
  3. To provide leadership opportunities for our student Ambassador team who collaborate in the development of the Wellbeing and Thrive curriculum. 
  4. To promote students’ skill development and provide young people with essential lifelong skills.

The Thrive Programme

Island School’s Thrive programme has been developed from evidence-based research about the wellbeing of young people. The pastoral team oversees the curriculum which is taught by the tutors. The curriculum encompasses wellbeing initiatives and the teaching of the new Relationship and Comprehensive (Sexual) Education curriculum. The RSE is mandatory across all ESF schools and was developed with the objective of “giving young people the tools to safeguard their health and wellbeing”. At Island School we believe that this should be at the core of the curriculum. The development of this programme is a result of ongoing work in protecting young people which has been established from UNESCO guidelines. 

Students will complete project based work to demonstrate their progression of skills with the focus on Citizenship and Character. Character building sessions focus on the development of mentality, encouraging skills that enable students to have empathy, compassion, resilience and a positive wellbeing. These sessions will help students take responsibility for their own learning pathways and will provide opportunities for students to reflect on their option choices and progress. Citizenship sessions focus on helping students understand their place in the local and global communities. These sessions help students take responsibility for participating in and contributing to their communities. They also provided opportunities to discuss and explore current affairs.

The IS Thrive Lenses

To ensure a well-rounded curriculum IS embraces the four elements of wellbeing:

Wellbeing at IS

Wellbeing at IS is an integral part of school life. We aim to capture wellbeing for all stakeholders; the students, parents, staff and wider community. Wellbeing at Island School is considered in four ways:  

Mindful aims to promote our Social Wellbeing. Mindful of ourselves, each other and the world around us. 

Positivity aims to promote our emotional wellbeing. To support students in managing their emotions using positive education whilst demonstrating empathy and compassion.

Health aims to promote our physical wellbeing. To embrace a healthy lifestyle and develop self care practices related to fitness, diet and sleep.

Purpose aims to promote our cognitive wellbeing. To challenge students in how they think, to develop resilience and a growth mindset. To encourage engagement, setting productive goals and a sense of achievement.

Raising Awareness About Wellbeing 

The monthly wellbeing promotes the IS four Thrive lenses to raise the awareness about wellbeing and is shared with our whole community. A copy of this will be shared in the weekly newsletter. This celebrates the students leadership opportunities and is facilitated by our ambassadors.

Positive Education

The Positive Schools programme is an initiative whereby staff who have been trained help deliver and engage positive education in schools. Within lessons the positive learning tools have been used to help reduce anxiety and help students manage their emotional wellbeing. The initiatives at IS include the murals project, creating a colourful and creative environment at school. The welcome committee whereby students meet and greet students and staff as they enter the school each morning. 

The Thrive Ambassadors

The importance of a student voice is paramount to the success of our wellbeing initiatives. We have ambassadors across all phases who support the development of the monthly wellbeing newsletter and school events. This collaboration aims to promote the awareness of wellbeing at school but also provide opportunities in extra curricular activities and leadership.