Partnership on new Grad Certificate to benefit student wellbeing in Australia

01 June 2023

Educators, school leaders, and student service staff are set to benefit from an innovative education training program that focuses on student wellbeing. Provided through the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA), the program will help build their capacity to lead their classrooms and enable school communities to flourish.

Open to teachers from all Australian schools, the Graduate Certificate of Wellbeing in Education was developed in partnership with Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA), which is offering scholarships to its staff to help cover the cost of the training.

Notre Dame Deputy Head of the School of Education, Dr Anne Coffey, said the need to support student wellbeing was a key finding of a recent Productivity Commission review of the nation’s education sector.

“As the Productivity Commission noted, there are a range of factors ‘outside the school gates’ that can significantly impact on a student’s performance,” Dr Coffey said.

“While schools cannot necessarily fix those external issues, there is a lot that teachers can do within the classroom to support the wellbeing of their students and give them the best chance of success.

“Our new Graduate Certificate equips educators with the skills, knowledge and confidence that they need to be able to identify students who are struggling and then create a safe and supportive environment that allows them to focus on learning.”

Dr Debra Sayce, Catholic Education WA Executive Director said:

“We acknowledge how important it is to support the wellbeing of our students and of the school staff who care for them.

“After the challenges and disruption to learning the world has faced in the last few years and the increasingly concerning trends around youth mental health, in Catholic education we want to provide our educators with the best opportunities to deepen their knowledge and capacity to effectively support improvements in student wellbeing.”

Importantly, the course also focuses on ways to improve the wellbeing of teachers through the development of positive school cultures. The Productivity Commission found that poor wellbeing among teachers was a major contributor to workforce attrition and could also have flow-on effects for students.

The course requires teachers to complete four units, which are delivered 100 per cent on-line. It is open to teachers from all Australian schools. The units that are covered include: Leading mindfulness for learning; Leading wellbeing in education; Pastoral care and the school; and Building resilient teachers and schools.

For more information about the course, or to enrol, please click here.