Wellbeing at RCHK
Wellbeing is at the heart of what we do at RCHK
Our model for wellbeing at RCHK is the “heart of RCHK”. It includes our values for our community on the left, and our work to develop wellbeing in ourselves on the right.
When asked what they want their children to be when they grow up, a large number of parents will reply that they want their children to be happy. We want the same thing. Happiness is an important part of life, with its ups and downs; recognising it and valuing it in ourselves and in others is part of living a good life.
Psychology has traditionally focused on correcting mental illness, but in the late 1990s, Martin Seligman encouraged the field to turn instead to look at ways to build and develop human strengths. Positive psychology builds on what is already good for people and helps them to thrive and to flourish.
The field of positive psychology is wide, and a number of slightly different definitions for it exist in the literature. At RCHK, we define positive psychology as, “the study of strengths, and how people use them to thrive within relationships, work and play.”
Positive education grew from positive psychology, and is becoming more prominent in schools around the world, and especially in Australia. It is an approach to education that focuses on developing the wellbeing of students, and it is an approach we are adopting at Renaissance College, where we define positive education as “nurturing strengths and personal motivation to promote learning and wellbeing based on a positive psychology approach”. The approach we adopt to wellbeing at RCHK builds on positive education origins for a holistic approach to wellbeing embedded in all areas of school life.
Wellbeing itself is a term that can be hard to define. At RCHK, we consider wellbeing to be “the physical, social and psychological state needed to meet life’s challenges.” We all know that life throws challenges at us. What we are striving for in our positive education approach is to support students in developing a toolkit of resources to respond to these challenges.
The goal of our approach to wellbeing at RCHK is to “provide the tools to flourish throughout life”.
What we VALUE at RCHK (“Values”)
These are the values we share at RCHK as being important for us in building wellbeing and developing an understanding of our goal:
What we LEARN at RCHK (“Constructs”)
A construct is an idea or theory that is formed in people’s minds. In psychology, constructs are related to aspects of human personality or behaviour, and positive psychology constructs specifically focus on a person’s ability to thrive.
At Renaissance College, we have selected five positive psychology constructs which support our values. The curriculum component of our wellbeing approach is based on these five constructs, and can be thought of as what we learn in terms of wellbeing:
* All quotes come from guiding principles for wellbeing at Renaissance College.