School Climate
Facilitating an optimal learning environment characterised by instructionally supportive interactions, social-emotional support and positive classroom management.
The subcategories (or wellbeing ‘constructs’) within each Knox Total Fitness pillar are informed by a rigorous review and meta-analysis conducted by the Science of Wellbeing researchers, and inform evidence-based interventions that staff and students can adopt to improve ‘fitness’ in each wellbeing domain.
Teaching and Learning
Understanding student perspectives, creating school mastery structures and teaching students to evaluate progress via individual improvement standards have been found to increase prosocial behaviour, academic achievement and psychosocial wellbeing, and decrease disruptive behaviour, suspension rates and negative behaviour (Cheon et al., 2020).
Safety
Creating an environment where students and staff feel physically and emotionally safe, with a sense of fair and consistent discipline has been associated with decreases in loneliness, depression, behavioural problems, relational aggression, school refusal, bullying and victimisation (Bradshaw et al., 2021).
Community
Community is characterised by the quality of relationships between and within students and staff, student cohesion, stakeholder involvement and respect for diversity. Conjointly, fostering a strong sense of school belonging that has been linked to a myriad of wellbeing outcomes (Allen et al., 2017; Allen et al., 2018; SIngla et al., 2021).
School Environment
The school environment is described by the structural organisation, physical environment and availability of resources, in addition to the shared belief that all students and staff feel cared for (Thapa et al., 2013). Support for the learning and development of student and staff is central to school connectedness and the overarching school climate.
