Warren Symonds – Embedding positive education across the curriculum

Warren Symonds, Principal at Mt Barker High School and 2020 Teaching Fellow will share how the wellbeing of his school community has been strengthened by making positive psychology and practice an integral part of everything they do – curriculum, policies and procedures and relationships.

His presentation will particularly focus on how they have embedded Positive Education across the curriculum, and when combined with high impact teaching and learning strategies, had a positive impact on student learning outcomes.

In this webinar participants will:

• learn about what Positive Education ‘looks like’ across the curriculum and at different year levels
• learn about ways to measure impact, and examples of growth
• gain insights into staff professional learning and training
• hear about strategies to sustain change.

About the presenter:

Warren Symonds, Principal at Mt Barker High School and 2020 Teaching Fellow

When he took over as principal at Mount Barker High School ten years ago, Warren Symonds was confronted with a school in crisis – it needed a fresh injection of confidence and success. The school was no longer held in high esteem by its community, and its students’ achievements and sense of wellbeing showed they were significantly disengaged and not reaching their potential.

Warren’s solution was to embed the philosophy and practice of positive psychology across the school. Making wellbeing central to teaching and learning has dramatically lifted both academic achievement and engagement in learning. Since 2012, the school’s rate of South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE) completions rose from 75 per cent to 100 per cent in 2019, year 8 enrolments have doubled, NAPLAN results improved, student wellbeing has shown a significant lift, as have school climate and connectedness.

Recognised as leaders in Positive Education, Warren and his Mount Barker staff are active collaborators, providing professional learning to over teachers throughout SA, ACT and WA. Warren was a recipient of a Commonwealth Bank Teaching Award in 2020.