10 lessons learned in 10 years of Positive Education

At the Positive Education New Zealand Conference 2019, I listened to the Vice Principal Charlie Scudamoore from Geelong Grammar School in Australia. This is a Primary and Secondary school. He spoke of the ten things he learned in the years of developing their own positive education programme for their school.

#1 Measure carefully, Baseline data is very important to see trends. Ask good questions. find out what the children think.
#2 Do well being WITH students not TO them.
#3 Train your teachers and non-teachers. And sure everybody knows it is about relationship building.
#4 The teachers mess a lot! Get the teachers ready, they need to be able to teach it properly.
#5 Make sure parents are involved and onboard with your program.
#6 The name of positive Education can make it seem fluffy. There are a number of myths and misunderstandings around Positive Education.
• So, what’s ‘negative’ education?
• It’s about making students happy
• It’s only looking ‘on the bright side’
• It’s all about having fun!
• It’s about giving every kid an ‘A’
• It’s about ignoring weaknesses
• It’s what non-academic schools do
• It’s wellbeing for rich kids
It is important that we are all speaking the same dialogue when addressing these misunderstandings.
#7 Positive in education is part of the curriculum It is taught implicitly as well as integrated into other learning areas.

#8 The school has not come up with an independent curriculum, but more of a roadmap for positive education

#9 Positive Education must be tailored to each school's context.
#10 Model, Make it stick, Make it positive, Sustained Cultural change.

Positive Education is not about being hit people the timeEdit seasonally does not avoid negative emotions.

Learn it, Live it, Teach it, Embed it

It is like slow cooked food - it is not a quick fix, it takes time