Abstract
Student well-being should be central to an education which is oriented to personal growth or Bildung. There are serious risks, however, of it being marginalised in education systems which are acutely focused on attainment and economic efficiency. The six articles in this issue address the question of well-being from a variety of perspectives, but which share a concern for community and inclusion, individual experience and needs, and an ethos of care.
Transition from primary to secondary schools can be a serious problem for many pupils in countries where this involves a change from a single teacher per class to each class having 10 or more different subject specialists. Joan Mowat at the University of Strathclyde (Scotland) examines the benefits to children’s well-being of supporting children with social, emotional and behavioural needs through a group-work approach. The authors concedes that there is no ‘magic bullet’ to such work but that it can bring real benefits if attention is paid to relationships and pedagogy.
Diane Chambers and Anne Coffey at the University of Notre Dame (Australia) also examine transition for young adolescents. Transition programmes typically involve various interrelated initiatives starting in the final year of primary school and continuing into the early months at the new school. This study introduces Universal Design for Learning as a set of principles for addressing the needs of all students.
Hannelore Reicher and Marlies Matischek-Jauk from Austria focus on the needs of depressive adolescents. These young people are particularly vulnerable because their feelings are often overlooked by teachers and fellow students, and other problems such as irritability and poor behaviour can confuse recognition. They examine ways of recognising problems early, improving achievement, preventing exclusion and generally improving well-being.
Joacim Ramberg, Sara Brolin Låftman, Ylva Almquist and Bitte Modin at Stockholm University (Sweden) examine the quality of relationships between teachers and students from the perspective of the students. They look at the contribution of school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos to students’ feeling that teachers care.
Bereavement is a not uncommon experience for young people but teachers are generally uncertain how to respond when someone dies. Frequently there is a reluctance to discuss death with children for fear of making things worse. Elaine McManus, working at a hospice in Denny, and Sally Paul, at the University of Strathclyde (Scotland), discuss and evaluate a programme of bereavement training for school staff designed to improve the quality of support to young people.
Asma Zulfiqar, Faiza Syed and Fatima Latif, working in various situations in Pakistan, engage with the need to strengthen the emphasis on well-being in their country’s divided educational institutions. Drawing on the international literature and three Australian case studies, they examine the relationship between academic and personal/social development. They recognise the difficulties which result from polarisation among schools but develop a model of student well-being for Pakistan which includes relationships, empathy and critical thinking.