John Hendry worked with staff at Ocean Grove Primary School in early 2022, beginning with a staff in-service day on 11 March. The school’s Principal, Scott McCumber and Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator Andy McNeilly made sure parents were kept informed of what the teachers were learning – more than that, they included lots of inspiring ideas and information in the school newsletter over the following few weeks.
We include a few examples below to show how effectively the messages of RbE can be shared with a school community.
- Newsletter #6 Message from Principal Scott McCumber about the in-service with teachers.
Scott writes, “I have attended many professional learning sessions in over 20 years in education but I have never been so engaged for the full day and could listen to John for a lot longer. We will be working with John more in 2022 and very soon, parents will have the opportunity to learn with and from John in a parent session most likely in term 2.” - Newsletter #6 Article by Mental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator Andy McNeilly. Andy writes, “John talked about the five key elements of a relationship: trust, forgiveness, integrity, hope, and compassion.”
- Newsletter #6 Article about the school’s Parent Club. (We can’t claim this as a result of RbE! But it’s interesting to see that parents are already active and engaged at this school, through a thriving Parent Club.
- Newsletter #7 Message from Scott McCumber – commenting on the success of the in-service and linking to 2 of John Hendry’s online articles.
- Newsletter #7 Article by Andy McNeilly about “What makes a good life” – links to the Harvard 75-year longitudinal study on what makes a happy life.
- Newsletter #8 Article by Andy McNeilly about the first of the 5 principles of RbE – Trust.
- Newsletter #9 Message from Scott McCumber about ‘Random acts of kindness’ at the school. Kindness is another principle of RbE.
