Get Happier School Coordinators - Get Happier School Program

Some Ideas and Strategies for Get Happier School Coordinators

The beginning of the year is a great time for Get Happier School Coordinators to capitalise on the energy and focus of the staff concerning the Get Happier School resources and their application in the school and community. Any time is a great time!

 First, it’s good to remember that every school is different, and how your school decides to implement the program will reflect all those significant factors within your school. Most schools jump straight into the whole program, while others implement it one piece at a time.

Staff Involvement

Getting as many staff members on board as possible is crucial to the program’s success. You will most likely understand your school and its culture, and you will optimally manage this. Many schools have decided to begin with a significant workshop or in-service activity, where one of the Get Happier team introduces the program and its underlying psychology over one or two days. In this workshop, there is a strong focus on the well-being and mental health of every staff member.

Encouraging every staff member to implement the curriculum for their year is very important to maintain the sequence of the program and the curriculum aims. Some schools tell me that having a standard time to deliver the program across all classes can be helpful.

One Get Happier school timetable Get Happier classes for the first class on Monday morning to help orient students to the school week and the learnings and the goals of Get Happier. It also offers a time for students who may be out of adjustment to feel support and connection and to remind everyone of the strategies for regulating emotions, solving problems, and getting happier.
Another school provides each classroom teacher with a hard copy of the teacher guide and the prescribed text for students at the beginning of each year to make it easy for teachers to commence the program.

Your role is vital in disseminating newsletters and information about the project to teachers. Hence, they become familiar with the range of resources within the program. You help teachers become familiar with the website and the subscriber area where they can access vast resources. The more teachers see the program’s positive outcomes (e.g. The ‘school snapshot’ area), the more they will be inspired to do it themselves.

Foster support

Coordinating and managing responses to the program is vital to its success. Remember that there is always a small group of earlier adopters of any program, and this group is critical to engaging other staff members who may need more confidence in delivering the program. Facilitating a five-minute section of each staff meeting for teachers to share their successes with the program works well. Providing staff with regular opportunities to share their accomplishments is important and helps build energy.

Encourage familiarity with the website and subscriber area to enable teachers to use the new app, the resources and games, and for children to become Doug’s Pit crew members on the ‘kids drag track’ site. Importantly, let staff know they are not restricted to the resources in the grade level they are teaching and can use resources from any grade level. There are great posters, an App, and many activities and games to reinforce learning of the concepts.

Help staff understand the developmental and sequential nature of the program, how it begins at the prep level and moves through each grade to grade 6, where students undertake projects to help make the school a happier place.

Documentation

Document positive outcomes in classrooms across the school and share the outcomes with all staff. This helps in maintaining the momentum of the program.  Share the successes with other Get Happier schools via the school snapshot, school visits, zoom sharing opportunities, and the Get Happier newsletter.

 Support teachers and parents

Support teachers in classroom management by reading the eBook Strategies for Creating the Self-Managing Classroom, chapter by chapter and using the discussion questions in groups to guide the process.

Get Happier School Coordinators can support parents by using your Facebook page to show what their children are learning. This also provides an opportunity to disseminate information about the program, provide the link to the parenting book, and increase awareness of family activities on the website. They could also initiate a book club amongst interested parents to read the book a chapter at a time and discuss it in a social setting at the school.

Connect to our private Facebook page to talk and share ideas with other schools and see how they use the program. You can also visit another Get Happier School to connect and get ideas. We encourage you to keep in touch with the Get Happier School team with ideas and questions.

Fun and Engagement

Finally, this program is fun; tapping into fun across the staff and student populations is critical to engagement and learning. Like all of us, I’m sure you will experience times when you feel a little discouraged, and that’s why it’s essential to always focus on success, positivity, energy, and happiness.
 One of our coordinators always organised fun activities for staff, resulting in connection, engagement and learning. He organised Get Happier table tennis tournaments and fun games using the cards from the Get Happier Toolbox at staff meetings.

Have fun!