Resilience Youth Survey results: it turns out we’re a pretty resilient bunch!

Each year, our students complete the Resilience Youth Survey, an independent wellbeing survey that gives students a voice and provides valuable insights into their wellbeing, resilience, relationships and connection to school. The survey results are compared against Australian norms and presented using a simple colour scale, from red (well below the norm) to bright green (well above it).

Like many educators, when the results arrive, our eyes are immediately drawn to the reds, oranges and yellows. We discuss them, analyse them and form working groups to better understand what might be happening. We ask questions about sleep, stress, friendships, belonging, and a range of other areas because we are committed to continually improving the experience of our students.

This year, however, we received a valuable reminder. When a consultant from the Resilience Youth Survey team visited to help us unpack the data, we enthusiastically launched into the areas we wanted to improve. She listened patiently before stopping us and asking a simple question:

‘Can you see all the green?’

Her question challenged us to confront our own negativity bias: our tendency to focus more on problems than successes. As psychologist Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, observed, ‘psychology has been preoccupied with repairing the worst things in life rather than building the best qualities in life.’ In many ways, we had fallen into the same trap, directing our attention to a handful of concerns while overlooking the overwhelming number of strengths reflected in the data.

Across a wide range of wellbeing indicators, our students reported exceptionally strong results. They spoke positively about family support, positive role models, feeling safe, being physically active, participating in extracurricular activities, caring about their school and enjoying school life. One result stood out above all others: students reporting that they have a teacher who genuinely cares about them. Our score sat more than 10 points above the Australian norm. For a school, there are few results that make us prouder than that.

We are certainly not perfect, and we will continue to focus on the areas where students tell us we can do better. However, this year's survey reminded us that alongside improvement, there should also be celebration. We often focus so hard on what needs improving that we forget to celebrate what is already going well. 

Harry Dendle
Deputy Head of Middle School – Student Wellbeing