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Making the experience of living, working and studying at Wellington life-enhancing.
Positive school is a process of values based organisational change that Wellington launched in September 2010. Our values are our deeply held beliefs about the way that the world ought to be. They shape and drive our attitudes and our behaviours and give us a reason to get out of bed in the morning. For many, it is a feeling of living up to our values that helps us to feel that we are flourishing and that our lives have a sense of meaning and purpose. In that sense, there is a direct overlap between the pursuit of values and the achievement of well-being.
As individuals, we acquire our own set of values throughout our lives, but it is important that our institutions also have values which shape how they conduct themselves and how they encourage those who belong to them to flourish. Chris Peterson writes about 'enabling institutions' and Wellington, by adopting the 5 values that you see at the top of the page, aims to put these 5 values into action in everything it does, to encourage the flourishing of all who work, study and live here.
The process is being guided by 3 key principles. Firstly, it is appreciative. This means that the process starts by looking for what we do well with a view to spreading it to all areas of College life. Secondly, it is grass-roots; it is not imposed from the top-down, but comes from the whole community. Finally, it is sustainable; this is not a process of forced, rapid change: we will take our time and get it right.
Over the next few years, now that the community has adopted the 5 values, Wellington will take time to put those 5 values into action: it will look at ways of making them stick. This is the most challenging and exciting part of the process and our achievements will be chronicled on the positive school timeline as they happen.
For more information, look at the suggestions for resources and the links below.
Chris Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology, chapters 7 and 11.
Glyn Willoughby and Neil Samuels, The Heathside Story; a guide to using appreciative inquiry in schools.
Address given to students to launch the values voting process here
Slides on Australia and values here