Wellbeing At Mac.Rob in 2025.
It’s been another wonderful year at Mac.Rob, and our Wellbeing and Engagement team have continued to support students to develop the skills and strategies that they need to optimise their learning and their wellbeing.
In Connect this year, Year 9 students learnt about their Foundations for Mental Health, such as sleep and social connection, and about how to identify and understand comfortable and uncomfortable emotions. Year 10 students were taught to use Emotion Coaching as a way of supporting their friends. All students in the school were encouraged to develop a Regulate and Ready Routine, which is a personalised plan for responding to and managing uncomfortable emotions such as worry, sadness and anger. Parents can explore our Connect lessons on the Connect Portal.
We also continued to develop our Little Lessons video and podcast series, which provides parents with information about how to support their child’s wellbeing. Parents can access these resources anytime, and we will continue to record new podcast episodes in 2026.
2026 saw a number of wellbeing initiatives featured at Mac.Rob, including our SRC Wellbeing Expo, our RUOK? Day celebrations, a visit from therapy dogs during exam week, a performance about cybersafety and bullying from Brainstorm Productions, and more training for our staff in the Berry Street Education Model, including a Masterclass in Culturally Responsive Practice delivered by Dr Tom Brunzell.
We also commenced a collaboration with Asami Koike, Founder and Director of Shapes and Sounds. Asami is supporting us to build cultural understanding and sensitivity into our wellbeing practices at Mac.Rob. We facilitated three parent focus groups with Asami, which were fascinating and informative experiences. We’re excited to continue this work next year.
And of course, our Subschool and Counselling teams provided support to many students who were experiencing difficulties.
If parents are interested in accessing information about wellbeing at Mac.Rob, you might like to explore the information on our Family Portal.
We are looking forward to working closely with families in 2026 to continue to optimise student learning and wellbeing at Mac.Rob. We wish all students and families a restful and joyful summer break.
Dr. Bridget McPherson | Head of Wellbeing and Engagement