Senior school

Vi et Animo Program

Wellbeing at Ascham is bringing heart to our learning and showing emotional and academic resilience within our Dalton Plan. We strive to connect positively with each other and take responsibility to contribute to the soul of our community. Showing and using our strength and having the courage to continually grow.  This enables us “To do our best in work and play”.

The girls’ wellbeing is of paramount importance to us and integral to the learning process in Senior School. Girls who are socially, emotionally and physically well are optimistic, have a positive outlook and are able to engage fully in their learning.

We are proud of our multifaceted, whole school approach to wellbeing which includes our Vi et animo Framework. Vi et animo translates to Heart, Soul, Strength and Courage. These four domains make up our framework represented by our Fig Tree. Our Values make up the roots of the tree. They sit beneath all we do here at Ascham. Respect and Kindness | Collaboration and Community | Courage and Resilience | Acceptance and Responsibility | Ambition

• Heart is where we build positive emotions such as love, joy, contentment and hope into daily life. The heart is about you – about being self-aware and managing emotions.
• Soul is the soul of Ascham – our culture. The soul really lies within all of us, how we interact with each other and our relationships.  It is about developing authentic attentive and respectful communication.
• Strength is understanding our character and learning strengths and identifying strengths in others. Strength is building the essential foundation for optimal physical health and optimal learning.
• Courage is about tackling learning challenges, taking risks and making mistakes. To help students and staff experience complete emersion in activities through understanding nature and engagement, the pathways to it and the importance of individual wellbeing. It is about Goal setting, embracing challenges with hope, grit and openness.

Each of these domains are interchangeable and by using this framework we can ensure that our students will learn from an age and stage appropriate wellbeing scope and sequence. Explicit wellbeing programs are taught in Form Classes on Thursday mornings, in Year Group Meetings and on Activity Days. Whole School Assemblies are an additional way we strengthen and support the delivery of our wellbeing programs. We aim for an individualised approach to aspects of student wellbeing and every Wednesday students have autonomy to select an activity that supports their wellbeing.

Our Houses and Sisters program plays a significant role in building a sense of belonging and connectedness. Our PDHPE syllabus also supports the explicit teaching of wellbeing as it covers many of the personal and social capabilities explicitly taught from Y7 to Y12. Wellbeing is delivered across a multitude of platforms here at Ascham by our wonderful team led by our Deputy Head of School consisting of Form Teachers, Year Coordinators, our School Psychologists, and our Head of Wellbeing.

Vi et Animo Program

All parents need to be provided with clear, fact-based information on the many challenges faced by our children and young adults—as we aim to raise happy, healthy and resilient young people.
Ascham has its own dedicated SchoolTV resource. It will be updated regularly and each edition will address a major topic with interviews with experts, fact sheets, parent quizzes, recommended apps, books and more.