Students develop best when they are doing well. When their mental health is good, they can be themselves, and they can develop in a healthy and safe way in an environment full of opportunities. In short: when they experience a high level of wellbeing. An integrated approach is needed to increase the wellbeing of students in VET education.
Inspiration for wellbeing in VET education
If you want to work on wellbeing in an integrated way at your VET school, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. The inspiration card Working on wellbeing in VET education contains plenty of tips and good examples from practice.
The inspiration card ties in well with the recently published ‘Wellbeing in VET Checklist’. This allows you, as a first step, to map out what is already going well at your school (location), and in which areas there is still room for improvement. If you then want to know how to take the next step, the Inspiration Card offers a solution. It follows the Healthy School pillars (Education, School Environment, Identification and Policy) and also ties in with the Healthy School theme scan. This allows you to check how far your school location has progressed with regard to the topic of wellbeing.
Created with professionals from practice
The Inspiration Card is intended to offer recognition and perspective, provide a variety of types of examples, and be user-friendly. That is why we developed this product together with the target group, based on conversations with professionals from educational practice. We asked them about current topics, challenges and wishes relating to working on wellbeing in an integrated way. During several meetings, we spoke with teachers, coordinators and confidential advisers. We also interviewed four VET professionals who were also Healthy School and vitality coordinators, directors or project leaders. Members of the MBO Council also reviewed the material and provided feedback. We combined their input with scientific insights into effective, integrated work on wellbeing in education.
The examples in the Inspiration Card are a selection of everything that exists and is already happening in VET education, and therefore do not constitute a complete overview. We will therefore regularly review and supplement the examples.
About Wellbeing at School and Healthy School
Wellbeing at School is there for schools, municipalities and Municipal Health Services that want to promote the wellbeing of pupils and students in and around the school. The knowledge and tools of Wellbeing at School are based on scientific research and help you quickly get started working on wellbeing from a sustainable, shared vision.
Within the Healthy School approach, a school chooses one or more health topics to work on. Wellbeing is one of these topics. The approach is based on what a school is already doing and aligns with the school’s wishes and needs. Wellbeing is addressed coherently in various areas of the school: as a substantive topic during lessons and in the physical and social environment, in policy and in identification.
Wellbeing at School is a knowledge partner of Healthy School. Healthy School puts the knowledge of Wellbeing at School into practice through the Healthy School approach.