Swan Christian College works diligently to create a safe and nurturing environment that provides students the opportunity to flourish. All staff members provide pastoral care and ensure the provision of proactive and reactive support measures address the holistic wellbeing of each student.
Living Well - Wellbeing Program
Our wellbeing program Living Well focuses on our students’ holistic development, beyond the traditional core curriculum. The program includes peer support, team building, leadership and resilience training, online safety and mental health education. The aim of the program is to equip students to flourish and achieve outstanding results, during their schooling life and beyond.
The program encourages mindfulness, exercise, and other stress-busting strategies, while also providing additional mental health resources and information for parents to access as they help their children through the rapidly changing social fabric and the stresses of teenage years.
From 2020 onwards, the Living Well program will deliver strategies and a better understanding of our changing world to our students and will actively focus on preparing our students for life beyond school. Workshops for students and parents with quality specialist facilitators will be made available and our College and camp programs will include opportunities to develop resilience, confidence and life skills.
Wellbeing Resources
To access our Living Well resources, including the SchoolTV resource, please click on this link which will lead you to the resources section of our website.
Pastoral Care at Swan Christian College
Understanding our place in creation cannot be achieved without acknowledging that we are beings created in God’s image. The most essential question a person can seek to answer is therefore not ‘who am I?’ or ‘what am I?’, but ‘whose am I?’.
The Bible affirms each of the following elements in our understanding of humanity, which together form the basis of all wellbeing programs at Swan Christian College.
We understand people to be:
- Physical – we have physical bodies that need nurturing, strengthening and training.
- Emotional – we are psychological beings with high levels of self-awareness. Our emotional experiences are just as real as our physical ones.
- Social – we are members of social networks of varying complexity and require positive, encouraging and supportive relationships.
- Mental – we have the faculties and intellectual capacity for growth and creativity.
- Spiritual – we have a fundamental need for relationship with God, the source of true life.
Junior School
In the Junior School, students are nurtured within their class group. The classroom teacher is best placed to provide the care and support needed during the students’ time at school. The fulltime Junior School Chaplain and College Psychologist are available to provide specialist support to the classroom teacher where needed, and provide services including early intervention programs, psychological testing and referrals to external providers.
The Deputy Head and Head of Junior School, together with the Educational Support Coordinator, are also members of the Junior School Pastoral Care Team and assist the classroom teacher by monitoring academic progress, providing counsel in the development of individual learning plans and responding to other individual needs as they arise.
Senior School
The Mentor Group and Mentor Teacher are important elements of stability and support for students. Deans of Year have oversight of pastoral care for each year group in the Senior School, as students continue to meet daily with their Mentor Group and Mentor Teacher.
The Dean of Year will listen, encourage and support students on their journey through Senior School. Using a coaching philosophy, they inspire and empower the students to take responsibility for their own decisions and together with the Educational Support Coordinator, Senior School Chaplain and College Psychologist, ensure that every individual student is provided with the highest level of support.
A specialist group of staff are specifically chosen to work with the Dean of Year 7 to assist students in their significant year of transition into the secondary years.
